German states in the 16th century composition. German states. Holy Roman Empire

The Congress of Vienna kept the state fragmentation

Germany, although greatly reduced during the Napoleonic Wars. Created by decision of the victorious powers, the German Union now included 37 (later 34) independent monarchies and 4 free cities - Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck and Frankfurt am Main. The latter became the seat of the only all-German body - the Allied Sejm, whose decisions were, however, not binding on the rulers of individual states. The monarchs saw in the state fragmentation of the country the best way to consolidate the class rule of the nobility and preserve their possessions. England, Russia and France also did not want to allow the creation of a united Germany as a possible rival in the future.

The most influential state of the German Union - Austria and the second most important - Prussia entered it only in those areas that were formerly part of the Holy Roman Empire. East Prussia, Pomerania and the Poznan district, which belonged to the Prussian monarchy, as well as Hungary, Slovakia, Galicia and the Italian possessions of Austria, remained outside the union. At the same time, the union included Hanover, Luxembourg and Golyitein, which were owned by the kings of England, Holland and Denmark, respectively.

The territory of Prussia consisted of two separate parts - six old Prussian provinces in the east and two in the west - Rhine and Westphalia. The latter continued to significantly outpace the more backward east of Prussia in economic terms: capitalist development was successfully going on here, and the rich and influential bourgeoisie was gaining strength. To a large extent, this was facilitated by the anti-feudal transformations carried out during French Revolution and during the Napoleonic period. In the east, the Junkers still dominated and large landed estates prevailed. In the Polish lands under the rule of Prussia, social oppression was aggravated by national oppression, and a policy of forcible Germanization of the local population was pursued.

Differences between the western and eastern provinces of Prussia were intensified by the disordered customs system. In the East in 1815 there were 67 different customs tariffs, often contradicting each other. In the west, the tariffs of the Thirty Years' War and the duties of the period of the French occupation were still partially preserved. The solution of the customs problem became the immediate demand of the Prussian bourgeoisie, which needed protection from foreign competition. In 1818, the Rhine bourgeois petitioned the king for the need to create a single customs union throughout Germany. But due to the opposition of Austria, which feared the strengthening of Prussia, a single protective customs tariff was then introduced only on the territory of Prussia. This testified to the strengthening of the political influence of the Prussian bourgeoisie in the life of the state, although the victory over France only strengthened the absolutist regime of Frederick Wilhelm III. After the war, he forgot his promises to introduce a constitution. Instead, estate representations were established in the provinces - Landtags, which had only deliberative rights.

Most of the other German states were also dominated by absolutist regimes. In Hanover and Saxony, almost all the feudal duties of the peasants were restored, as well as the estate Landtags, which consolidated the political dominance of the nobility. The situation is different in the southwest. In Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg and Hesse-Darmstadt, where the influence of bourgeois France left an indelible mark, in 1817-1820. the abolition of the dependent position of the peasants was confirmed and moderate constitutions were introduced, reflecting the increasing role of the bourgeoisie. The bicameral system with a high property qualification, which retained the privileges of the nobility, nevertheless meant the gradual approach of these states to a monarchy of a new, bourgeois type.

Development of capitalist relations.

In the first half of the XIX century. Germany was a predominantly agricultural country. Its population in 1816 was about 23 million, by the middle of the century - more than 35 million people. three quarters of it

lived in the village and was engaged in agriculture, as well as home crafts. The personal dependence of the peasants no longer existed, but they were entangled in a network of various payments, duties and debts. In Prussia, the Junkers only benefited from the agrarian reform of the beginning of the century, which preserved many feudal vestiges. Under the terms of the reform, the peasantry, in order to free themselves from corvee, by 1821 was forced to cede to the Junkers in Brandenburg and East Prussia a quarter of their land allotments, in Pomerania and Silesia - almost 40%. According to the new procedure for the redemption of feudal duties established in 1821, only peasants who had a full team of working cattle and were able to pay the noble landowners a ransom in the amount of 25 annual payments could use it. Under such conditions, by the middle of the century in Prussia, only a quarter of the entire peasantry, exceptionally prosperous, was able to free itself from duties.

The robbery of the Prussian peasantry gave the Junkers the opportunity to begin a profound restructuring of their economy on a capitalist basis, with the merciless exploitation of the labor of semi-feudally dependent landless laborers and small-land peasants who were forced to sell their labor power. The process of capitalist transformation of large landownership was accompanied by its technical re-equipment and improvement of agricultural technology. A decisive share of the means of agricultural production was concentrated in the hands of the Junkers. The implementation of the Prussian agrarian reforms was accompanied by the replenishment of the ranks of landowners by representatives of the bourgeoisie; this created the basis for the convergence of the social positions of the nobility and the bourgeoisie and opened up the possibility for a political compromise between these classes in the future. Such a path of capitalist agrarian development, when "the feudal landlord economy slowly develops into a bourgeois, Junker ... with the allocation of a small minority of" Grossbauer "("big peasants")", especially painful for the peasantry, who also suffered from the oppression of semi-feudal duties, and from the new capitalist exploitation, V. I. Lenin defined as the "Prussian" path of development of capitalism in agriculture 23.

In the west of Germany, where small-scale peasant farming prevailed and feudal survivals were not so strong, the stratification of the peasantry was already proceeding at a rapid pace, especially on the Rhine. The rural bourgeoisie ("grossbauers") emerged there, using the labor of the bulk of the ruined peasants as hired labor.

German industry in the first decades of the 19th century. consisted mainly of manufactories and craft workshops. The transition to factory production was outlined only in the cotton industry of Saxony, in the Rhine-Westphalian region and Silesia.

The successful development of capitalist relations in Germany was slowed down by the fragmentation of the country, which hampered the formation of a single internal market. A wide influx of foreign, primarily English, goods narrowed the possibilities of marketing the products of German industry. Dissatisfied with this, the German bourgeoisie, especially the Prussian bourgeoisie, came out more and more insistently in favor of a common protective customs system.

By the beginning of the 1930s, the Prussian government had already achieved the elimination of customs barriers with six neighboring small states. In 1831, Hesse-Darmstadt joined this customs association and negotiations began with Bavaria, Württemberg and the Central German states. On the night of January 1, 1834, a new Customs Union was proclaimed from 18 states with a population of 23 million people. At their borders, customs barriers were solemnly broken and burned. In 1835 Baden and Nassau joined it. The creation of the Customs Union marked a new stage in the economic development of Germany, the formation of the economic unity of the country began, while maintaining state fragmentation. However, the political influence of Prussia, which occupied a leading position in the Customs Union, increased dramatically.

23 Lenin V. I. Poly. coll. op. T. 16. S. 216.

lo. Dissatisfied with this, Austria tried to undermine the union by entering into separate trade agreements with its individual members.

The Prussian Junkers willingly bought cheap British products and also repeatedly opposed the formation of the Customs Union. It feared that, in response to its creation, other states would raise duties on agricultural products exported by the Junkers. The bourgeoisie, on the contrary, demanded a further tightening of protectionism to protect against foreign competition. Its ideologist and theoretician was the well-known bourgeois economist from Württemberg, Professor F. List, who advocated the need for state intervention in economic life.

The beginning of the industrial revolution.

In the early 30s of the XIX century. The industrial revolution began in Germany. It became possible thanks to the emergence of a free labor force from among the ruined artisans and peasants, the successful accumulation of large capitals of the nobility and the bourgeoisie, a significant increase in the urban population and an increase in its purchasing demand. Technological progress and the development of transport played a huge role in the industrial revolution. Steamboats appeared on the Rhine from 1822, in 1835 the first Nuremberg-Fürth railway was opened, followed by the lines Berlin-Potsdam, Leipzig-Dresden. From the beginning of the 1940s, the construction of several large lines throughout Germany began. By 1848, the length of railways in Germany was more than twice that of France and amounted to over 5 thousand km, of which 2.3 thousand km were in Prussia. A developed network of highways was added to the railway lines (12 thousand km in 1848), which were built mainly on the initiative and at the expense of Prussia.

The construction of railroads not only stimulated trade, but also required a large amount of coal and metal, which in turn accelerated the growth of heavy industry. The Rhineland developed especially rapidly with its large reserves of coal and iron ore in the Ruhr and Saar valleys. There are new big

centers of mining and metallurgical industry - Bochum and Essen. The number of steam engines increased: in Prussia in 1830 there were 245 of them, and in 1849 - 1264. Mechanical engineering arose. largest center it became Berlin, where steam engines and locomotives were produced. The Borsig machine-building plant in Berlin, where the first locomotive was built in 1841, became the main manufacturer of steam locomotives in Germany.

In Saxony, the textile industry developed at an accelerated pace. Hand spinning was supplanted by mechanical spindles, their number exceeded half a million by the middle of the century compared to 283 thousand in 1814. Chemnitz, the center of the Saxon textile industry, was called by contemporaries the “German Manchester”.

The production of the manufacturing industry in Germany increased by 75% in the 1930s and 1940s, its growth rates were higher than in France, however, according to general level industrial development, Germany continued to lag behind her, and even more so from England. The textile industry remained the realm of scattered manufacture; back in 1846, only 4.5% of the spinning machines were in factories, the rest belonged to homeworkers. Due to lack of capital, obsolete technology prevailed. Blast furnaces in Germany ran on charcoal, and each of them was ten times less productive than the English and Belgian blast furnaces that ran on coke. The first blast furnace using coke appeared in the Ruhr basin only in 1847. Although iron smelting increased from 62 to 98 thousand tons from 1831 to 1842, the metallurgical industry could not satisfy the needs of the country.

The 1940s were also marked by a growing import of semi-finished products and machinery into Germany. However, the development of foreign trade was hampered by the weakness of the merchant fleet and the inability of a fragmented Germany to protect the interests of its merchants in world markets. The lack of state unity was the main factor holding back the development of capitalist production.

The industrial revolution in Germany led to the formation of the industrial proletariat. The total number of wage laborers increased from 450,000 in 1832 to almost one million in 1846, but the bulk of them were still artisan apprentices and home workers. In the most developed Prussia in 1846, there were 750 thousand miners, railway and manufacturing workers, 100 thousand of whom were women and children, and only 96 thousand accounted for the factory proletariat. By the middle of the 19th century. in Germany, handicraft and manufacturing still prevailed over large-scale machine production.

The growth of the opposition movement.

In the first years of the Restoration, only the German students, who were mostly petty-bourgeois in composition, resolutely opposed attempts to strengthen feudal reaction. The centers of his movement were the universities of the cities of Jena and Giessen. The patriotic radical youth demanded the creation of a united free Germany and called for the overthrow of the monarchs. At the initiative of the student organization of Jena in the Wartburg castle (near Eisenach), where Luther once hid from persecution, German youth celebrated the anniversary of the Leipzig "battle of the nations" and the three-century anniversary of the Reformation. The celebration on October 17-18, 1817 was attended by almost 500 students from 13 Protestant universities and a number of progressive professors. After the torchlight procession, its participants, imitating Luther, defiantly burned various symbols of the reaction (Austrian corporal stick, Hessian soldier's braid, etc.) and books of the most hated ideologues of the Restoration.

After the Wartburg speech, the students of Jena created the "All-German Student Union" under the motto "Honor, freedom, fatherland!", As well as a secret society to fight the reaction. In March 1819, its participant Karl Zand stabbed to death the reactionary playwright and scammer A. Kotzebue. The assassination gave the authorities a welcome excuse to crush the democratic movement.

In August 1819, a conference of representatives of the countries of the German Union adopted the Carlsbad Decrees on the introduction of strict censorship and the prohibition of student organizations. A special investigative commission was created, which conducted trials of members of secret organizations throughout the 1920s. But it was not possible to strangle the revolutionary movement in the country. Its new rise began in the 30s under the influence of the July Revolution in France, the uprising in Poland and the declaration of independence of Belgium.

Almost simultaneously in August - September 1830 mass unrest broke out in various states of Germany. In Saxony, where clashes with the police began in June, the center of discontent has become the industrial city of Leipzig. In it, as well as in the capital of Saxony - Dresden, for the first time in Germany, a bourgeois civil guard was organized. The King of Saxony, like the ruler of Hanover, was forced to agree to the introduction of constitutional orders. The reactionary monarchs abdicated in Braunschweig and Hesse-Kassel, and here in 1831-1832. constitutions were also introduced. In the south-west of the country, in Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg, where there were constitutions before, the bourgeoisie won freedom of the press and launched a press campaign for German unity.

The peak of the democratic movement for the unification of the country and democratic reforms in the 30s was the Hambach demonstration on May 27, 1832 in the Palatinate near the ruins of the Hambach castle. It was attended by about 30 thousand artisans and apprentices from all German states, representatives of the liberal bourgeoisie and intelligentsia, Polish emigrants and French democrats from Strasbourg. The Hambach demonstration, which took place under the slogans of the unification of the country and the introduction of constitutional freedoms, showed that the prerequisites for a broad revolutionary movement. Alarmed by these events, the reaction went on the offensive. At the insistence of Austria and Prussia, the Federal Diet in June 1834 tightened the laws that restricted the rights of the Landtags and freedom of the press and prohibited political organizations, popular demonstrations and

sewing black-red-gold national emblems. In Hesse, the police defeated the secret Society of Human Rights, headed by a veteran of the student movement, pastor F. Weidig and student G. Buchner, a gifted poet, author of the famous revolutionary drama Danton's Death. The society sought to prepare a democratic revolution in Germany and launched a wide campaign for this purpose. Propaganda was carried out not only in the cities, but also among the peasants, for whom Büchner wrote the leaflet "Hessian rural messenger" with the appeal: "Peace to huts - war to palaces!"

bourgeois liberalism.

The wealthy German bourgeoisie increasingly insisted on their participation in the government of the country and condemned the dominance of the nobility, seeing in it the source of its fragmentation and backwardness. However, the degree of political maturity of the bourgeoisie in individual states was different; there was no nationwide bourgeois movement. Fear of both the monarchy and the masses of the people forced the liberals to seek a peaceful agreement with the nobility and, in the main, limited themselves to timid petitions for the granting of constitutions from above, at the same time openly condemning the revolution as an "illegal and harmful" phenomenon.

The most famous petition of this kind on behalf of the Rhine bourgeoisie was presented to the Prussian king in 1831 by the influential Aachen manufacturer D. Hansemann. It proposed to establish an all-Prussian Landtag and change the electoral system in order to abolish the class privileges of the nobility and admit the bourgeoisie to political power, but without introducing universal suffrage. The monarchist-liberal bourgeoisie, which was in the mood of a monarchy, did not think of a decisive struggle against the absolutist regimes. On the contrary, she tried to convince the king that the most important support of the monarchy should be the alliance between the bourgeoisie and the Junkers. Without such an alliance, in the opinion of the liberals, the threat of an uprising of the "mob" increased, threatening these classes equally. Repeated warnings about the menacing danger from the proletariat and socialism were repeated in his writings by the bourgeois sociologist L. Stein, who referred to the experience of France.

Another important slogan of the liberals was the demand for the national unification of Germany. The absence of a unified state hurt the material interests of the bourgeoisie and made it extremely difficult for German industry and trade to enter the world market. During this period, the expansionist appetites of the German bourgeoisie, which dreamed of conquests and colonies, were already manifested.

The hopes of the Prussian liberals for reforms on the part of King Frederick William IV, who ascended the throne in 1840, did not come true. The new monarch immediately declared the impossibility of changes in the absolutist system of Prussia. This strengthened the oppositional sentiments of the bourgeoisie, which were expressed by the Cologne "Rheinskaya Gazeta" and "Konigsbergskaya Gazeta". In numerous articles, often harsh in tone, the liberal press launched a broad campaign for reform. In Baden, in 1844, the publication of the multi-volume "State Dictionary" was completed, which became the bible of German liberalism. The dictionary promoted a class-qualified constitutional monarchy with a bicameral system as an ideal state system. The main feature of the liberal opposition remained its "most loyal", according to F. Engels, character.

Petty-bourgeois-democratic radicalism.

Much more resolute than the liberal big bourgeoisie were the petty-bourgeois strata of the population of Germany, who experienced the oppression not only of the semi-feudal order, but also of the emerging capitalist system. Such conditions led their advanced representatives to resolute protest and engendered among them republican-democratic ideas, formulated, however, still in a very indefinite form.

Due to police repression at home, most of the petty-bourgeois democrats acted in exile. In Switzerland and France, several organizations of artisans and journeymen were created.

21 See: Marx K., Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. T. 8. S. 25.

ev, who issued proclamations calling for a broad popular struggle for a free German republic. In artistic form, these same ideas were developed by the radical democratic literary movement "Young Germany", the center of which was Paris.

The petty-bourgeois intelligentsia played a significant role in the democratic movement. She advocated political equality and democratic freedoms, not recognizing social equality. The petty-bourgeois democrats, while remaining idealists in their understanding of history, exaggerated the role of "critical thinking person”and put forward a demand for her unlimited freedom, showing a penchant for anarchism. Condemning capitalism, representatives of one of the trends of petty-bourgeois radicalism - "true socialists" - considered it an evil that Germany could avoid. They brought to the fore the utopian idea of ​​a direct transition of the German semi-feudal absolutist states to socialism. The achievement of this goal, in their opinion, was possible through the spiritual and moral improvement of the entire German society, and not through the struggle between classes. For their tirades against the bourgeoisie and capitalism, the "true socialists" sometimes even enjoyed the support of the authorities.

The confused and contradictory nature of the ideas put forward by the petty-bourgeois democrats stemmed from the unstable and indefinite social position of the petty-bourgeois strata of the German population.

The beginning of the German labor movement.

In the first half of the XIX century. German workers were in extremely difficult conditions. The owners of manufactories and factories, seeking to increase profits in the face of intense competition with foreign products, reduced prices and increased the length of the working day, which reached 15-16 hours. The intensity of the exploitation of the proletariat grew. In the textile industry, which employed mainly women and children, it reached such proportions that the Prussian government was alarmed by the shortage of healthy recruits for the army and was forced in 1839 to limit

the working day of teenagers ten hours and prohibit child labor. But this law was not respected not only by the manufacturers, but also by the working families themselves, who wanted to increase their miserable budget.

Scattered for the most part in small enterprises and workshops, the workers had neither organizations capable of protecting their interests, nor a clear class consciousness. As far back as the 1940s, machine-destroyers continued to perform in Germany, which was characteristic precisely of the early stage of the struggle of the proletariat. Many more active and conscious workers and artisans emigrated abroad, most often to Paris. There, in 1833, the "German people's union”, he issued leaflets calling for the overthrow of the absolutist rulers and the unification of Germany. The union, banned by the French authorities, went underground, and in 1835, on its basis, the democratic-republican "Union of Outcasts" was created. It united from one hundred to two hundred workers and artisans, published the magazine "Outcast" under the motto "Freedom, equality, brotherhood!". The following year the left wing of the organization, its "...most extreme, for the most part proletarian elements..." (Engels) 25 created their "Union of the Just". His program, which was still utopian in nature, aimed at achieving equality on the basis of the community of property. In 1839, members of the Union took part in the Blanquist uprising in Paris, with whom they worked closely, and after its defeat fled to England or Switzerland. The center of the restored Union was now London.

Wilhelm Weitling (1808-1871), an apprentice tailor from Magdeburg, was one of the outstanding figures of the early stage of the German labor movement. Literary talent and organizational skills put him among the leaders of the Union. In 1838, Weitling was commissioned to draw up a manifesto for the organization, and he wrote it in the form of a book, Mankind As It Is and As It Should Be. After the defeat of the Blanquist uprising, he left

25 Marx K., Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. T. 21. S. 215.

Weitling passionately condemned capitalism and was convinced of the possibility of an immediate social upheaval. For this, according to Weitling, all that was needed was a powerful impetus, the essence of which, however, he did not clearly imagine: Weitling brought to the fore either the moral enlightenment of the working people, or a revolutionary spontaneous revolt. But in both cases, unlike the utopian socialists, he counted only on the poor. He never shared the naive hopes for wealthy philanthropists and benefactors of the people and did not believe in the ability of the bourgeoisie to morally reorganize society. Overestimating the spontaneity of the revolutionary upheaval, Weitling considered it strike force outcasts of society - lumpen proletarians embittered by their position and even criminals. Although he did not understand and did not accept scientific communism, all his activities testified to the emergence of an independent German labor movement.

The awakening of the proletariat manifested itself even more clearly in June 1844, when the uprising of the Silesian weavers broke out. Their situation in the early 1940s deteriorated extremely. Entrepreneurs, struggling with foreign competition, constantly reduced wages or fired part of the weavers, who worked mainly at home and lived on the verge of starvation.

The uprising broke out on June 4, 1844 in the village of Peterswaldau, when the police arrested a weaver who sang under the windows of the especially hated and cruel manufacturer Zwanziger the formidable song “Bloody Court” - this, in the words of K. Marx, is the “battle cry” of the Silesian proletariat. Comrades stood up for the arrested man, demanding, in addition, an increase in wages. In response to the rude refusal of the manufacturer, the indignant workers destroyed and burned his house, office and warehouses of goods. The next day, the unrest spread to the neighboring town of Langenbilau. Troops arrived there, shot at an unarmed crowd, 11 people were killed, 20 seriously injured; but the enraged weavers themselves went on the attack and put the soldiers to flight. Only a new strong detachment with artillery forced the workers to stop resisting. About 150 participants in the uprising were sentenced to imprisonment and whipping. Newspapers were forbidden to write about the Silesian events, but the news of them quickly spread throughout the country and caused unrest among the workers of Breslau, Berlin, Munich, and Prague.

The uprising was spontaneous and had no definite political idea. Nevertheless, this class action of the workers was a fact of great social and political significance. It meant that the German proletariat had embarked on a revolutionary path of struggle and declared "... publicly that it opposed the society of private property" (Marx) 26.

Germany on the eve of the revolution.

By the mid-1940s, tensions in Germany had increased. The opposition movement in Prussia intensified especially noticeably. In 1845, almost all the provincial councils spoke out in favor of introducing a constitution. As before, the opposition was led by the Rhenish bourgeoisie, who nominated the leaders of Prussian liberalism - the banker L. Camphausen and D. Hansemann. The Prussian liberals took part in the congress of the liberals of southern Germany, held in 1847 in Baden, which indicated a rapprochement between the opposition-bourgeois circles of the south and north of the country. The congress put forward a project for the creation of a Customs Parliament under the Federal Seimas from the delegates of the Landtags of individual states, which was supposed to solve only purely economic issues. Such a moderate program of the liberals led to their break with the bourgeois-democratic wing of the opposition, which spoke at its congress for the introduction of democratic freedoms, the creation of an all-German popular representation on the basis of universal suffrage, the abolition of all noble privileges and the adoption of a progressive income tax. Radical-democratic circles were even more determined, one of whose representatives was the poet

m Marx K., Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. T. I. C. 443.

G. Herweg directly called on the German people to revolutionary struggle and the creation of a single democratic republic.

Crop failures 1845-1847 and the commercial and industrial crisis of 1847 sharply aggravated the situation in Germany. Railway construction was reduced by 75%, iron smelting fell by 13%, coal mining - by 8%. Compared with 1844, the real wages of workers fell by a third. Unemployment increased, and in Berlin alone, about 20,000 weavers were left without a livelihood.

Driven to despair, the masses staged food riots. In April 1847, a three-day "potato war" broke out in Berlin; the people smashed the shops of food merchants who had inflated prices. The unrest spread to other cities in Prussia. In May, bloody clashes with the troops broke out in Württemberg, where the first barricades appeared on the streets of the cities.

The Prussian government, whose treasury was almost empty, unsuccessfully requested new loans from the bankers, but they refused to provide them without guarantees of "representation of the people." The king was forced to convene in April 1847 in Berlin the United Landtag with the right to vote loans and taxes. But he categorically refused to give it legislative functions, which led in June to the dissolution of the obstinate Landtag, which refused to approve new loans.

The upsurge of the popular movement, the activity of the liberal bourgeoisie and the throwing of the government indicated that a revolutionary situation had developed in Prussia. Terrible signs of an approaching storm also appeared in other German states. Unrest swept the southwest of the country, where revolutionary leaflets began to circulate widely, calling for a popular uprising. The governments of the South German states, hoping to win over the liberal opposition to their side, made promises of liberal reforms.

For its part, the German bourgeoisie, striving for political power, at the same time already saw the threat looming over them from the proletariat.

Fear of him predetermined the moderation of the political line of the bourgeoisie, its desire to conclude an early compromise with the monarchies.

German classical philosophy. Culture of Germany.

The originality of the spiritual life of Germany first half of XIX in. was that in the absence of political freedoms, philosophy and literature acquired a special social sound.

Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854) developed the foundations of an objective-idealistic natural philosophy, while trying to transfer the idea of ​​development and the universal connection of phenomena to the historical process. However, he viewed the development of society as a movement towards an ideal "legal order" that met the hopes of the German bourgeoisie. Schelling's ideas about progressive development influenced the greatest German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831).

Hegel developed the doctrine of dialectics based on objective idealism. The core of this doctrine was the idea of ​​development, the internal source of which the philosopher saw in the struggle of contradictions, which overturned the metaphysics of all previous theories. Arguing that the end result of history does not depend on the will of individual people, but expresses the self-development of the world spirit, he, although on an idealistic basis, substantiated the bold idea of ​​the objective content of the historical process. Hegel's thoughts about the natural and progressive change of individual stages in the development of society destroyed the theory of the social inviolability of the existing order. That is why Herzen rightly called Hegelian dialectics "the algebra of revolution."

But remaining an idealist, Hegel did not take into account the material foundations of historical development. His progressive dialectical method was combined with a distorted idealistic interpretation of the forces underlying history, and the whole philosophical system led to the possibility of both revolutionary and reactionary political conclusions. From here came the inevitable delimitation of the followers of Hegel into two different ideological currents - the right and the left, or the Young Hegelian.

The Young Hegelians (brothers B. and E. Bauer, A. Ruge, D. Strauss) sharply criticized the official ideology, law and morality, actively attacked the tenets of religion, laying the foundations for its scientific criticism. But they fought not against the evil of social relations, but against its reflection in the minds of people, since their dialectics did not rise to a materialistic understanding of history. Idealism and fear of the first uprisings of the proletariat in the early 1940s quickly led the Young Hegelians to the camp of moderate bourgeois liberalism.

In contrast to them, Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), the largest scientist from the Hegel school, the last outstanding representative of German classical philosophy, moved to the positions of materialism. However, he rejected not only the idealistic system of Hegel, but also his fruitful dialectical method. Having given a materialistic explanation of the origin of religion, Feuerbach did not understand that man lives not only in nature, but also in society, and that materialism is not only a natural but also a social science. Despite its anthropologism, Feuerbach's doctrine of the incompatibility of social oppression with the true free essence of man, his criticism of religion and idealistic philosophy had a revolutionary effect on his contemporaries.

German culture in the first half of the 19th century. developed in conditions of acute ideological struggle between feudal reaction and bourgeois-democratic forces. The first sought to revive extreme religious-monarchist ideas by inscribing the slogan "Throne and Altar" on its banner. The ideas of restoring the old feudal order were reflected in romanticism. A number of German romantics proclaimed the medieval estate state of "knights and saints" as their ideal. The books of one of them, the ardent obscurantist K. L. Haller, were read by the Prussian king. At the same time, romantics, gravitating towards the past, made a great contribution to the search for and publication of folklore works, to the collection and processing of folk songs.

Other romantics dreamed of a better future. The great poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) belonged to them - not only a wonderful lyricist and satirist, but also a talented publicist. A friend of Marx, Heine was not a socialist, but in the poem "The Weavers" he welcomed the beginning of the struggle of the German proletariat. His brilliant poem "Germany. The Winter Tale” is a picture of German life in those years, imbued with love for the motherland, unsurpassed in terms of the power of sarcasm and satire that destroys. Heine, who lived in exile, led the Young Germany movement of democratic poetry, which was joined by other famous German poets, primarily L. Berne.

Great was the social influence of music in Germany. A factor of political significance was the creation of numerous singing unions and folk choirs, whose activities were imbued with a national-patriotic spirit. A striking manifestation of romanticism in music was the work of Robert Schumann (1810-1856). The rise of German music was crowned by the work of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), whose grandiose and monumental "Ninth Symphony" remains one of the greatest creations of world musical culture.

The section consists of separate essays:

Germany in antiquity

The Germans (Germanen) were the closest neighbors of the Celts who inhabited Central and Western Europe. The first mention of them is found in the 4th century. BC e. However, archeological evidence suggests that the formation of the Proto-Germanic ethnic and linguistic substratum, dating back to the Indo-European community, in northern Europe can be attributed to the period ca. 1000 BC e. By the 1st century BC e. The Germans occupied a region that roughly coincided with the territory of modern Germany. The etymology of the word "Germanen" itself is still unclear.
Geographically, the Germans were divided into several tribes. The Batavs, Bructers, Hamavs and others belonged to the tribes that lived between the Rhine, Main and Weser. The Alemanni inhabited the southern part of the Elbe basin. The Bavarians lived in the mountains in the south. Hawks, Cimbri, Teutons, Ambrons, Angles, Varins and Frisians settled on the coast of the North Sea. From the middle and upper Elbe to the Oder, the tribes of the Suebi, Marcomanni, Quadi, Lombards and Semnons settled; and between the Oder and the Vistula, the Vandals, Burgundians, and Goths. Svions and Gauts settled in southern Scandinavia.
In the 1st century BC e. The Germans lived in a tribal system. supreme power in the tribe belonged to the national assembly. Cattle breeding played an important role in the economy. Land ownership was collective. Social contradictions began to emerge between the community members and the nobility, who had more slaves and land. Internecine wars were the main industry.
The first contacts between the Germans and Rome date back to 58 BC e. Then Julius Caesar defeated the Suevi, at the head of which was Ariovistus. This happened on the territory of Northern Gaul - modern Alsace. Three years later, Caesar drove two more Germanic tribes across the Rhine. At about the same time, descriptions of the Germans as a separate ethnic group appear in the literature, including in Caesar's Notes on the Gallic War. In 12 BC A large-scale German campaign was launched by Nero Claudius Drusus, who received the title of Germanicus. The borders of the empire were expanded to Albis (Elbe) and by 7 BC. e. most of the tribes were subjugated. The territory between the Rhine and the Elbe was under the rule of the Romans for a short time - until uprisings of Arminius. Arminius, the son of the leader of the Cherusci, was sent to Rome as a hostage, received an education there, and served in the Roman army. He later returned to his tribe and served the Roman governor Varus. When in 9 Var with an army and a convoy moved to winter quarters, Arminius lagged behind with his army from the main one and attacked separate detachments in the Teutonic Forest. In three days, the Germans destroyed all the Romans (from 18 to 27 thousand people). The Rhine became the border of the Roman possessions. A line of fortifications "limes" was built from the Rhine to the Danube, traces of which have survived to this day.
At the beginning of the first millennium, the Germanic tribes gradually began to form alliances that were stable. The unions of the Alemans, Saxons, Franks, Goths became known from history. The most significant tribal union of the Germans was the union of the Marcomanni under the leadership of Marobodu. In the 2nd century the Germans intensified the onslaught on the borders of the Roman Empire, the result of which in 166 was Marcomannic War. In 174, Emperor Aurelius managed to stop the onslaught of the Marcomanni and other Germanic tribes.
The invasions of the Germanic tribes into the territory of the Roman Empire continued throughout the 4th-7th centuries. During this period, there is great migration of peoples Europe. These processes had important socio-economic and political consequences for the Western Roman Empire. Changes in the social structure of the tribes, as well as the crisis in the empire itself, contributed to the fall of Rome.

Formation of the first German states

In 395, after the death of Emperor Theodosius, the united Roman Empire was divided between his sons into Western and Eastern (Byzantium), the rulers of which used the Germanic barbarians to resolve their conflicts. In 401, the Visigoths, under the command of Alaric, left the Eastern Empire for the Western, where, after a series of unsuccessful battles in Italy, they were forced to conclude a peace treaty with the Romans and settle in Illyricum. In 410, the Goths, under the command of Alaric, captured and sacked Rome. Also during this period, the Vandals, Suebi, Alans, Burgundians and Franks invaded the territory of Gaul.
The first kingdom was founded in Aquitaine, the Burgundian kingdom in Gaul, kingdoms in Spain and North Africa, England.
AT 476 German mercenaries who made up the army Western empire, led by Odoacer deposed the last Roman emperor Romulus Augustus. Emperors in Rome in 460-470. the commanders from the Germans were appointed, first the Sev Ricimer, then the Burgundian Gundobad. In fact, they ruled on behalf of their henchmen, overthrowing those if the emperors tried to act independently. Odoacer decided to become head of state, for which he had to sacrifice the title of emperor in order to maintain peace with the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium). This event is formally considered the end of the Roman Empire.
In the 460s. Franks under King Childeric formed their own state at the mouth of the Rhine. The Frankish kingdom became the third German state in the lands of Gaul (after the Vezegots and Burgundians). Under Clovis, Paris became the capital of the Frankish state, and the king himself with an army adopted Christianity in the form of Catholicism, which ensured the support of the Roman clergy in the fight against other Germans who professed Arianism. The expansion of the Frankish state led to the creation in 800 of the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne, which for a short time united the possessions of all Germanic peoples with the exception of England, Denmark and Scandinavia.

East Frankish kingdom

The Kingdom of the Franks was founded by King Clovis 1 of the Merovingian family. The starting point in the formation of the Frankish state was the conquest of the last Roman possessions in Gaul by the Salian Franks, led by Clovis I, in 486. 507) and the Franks who lived along the middle reaches of the Rhine. Under the sons of Clovis, the king of the Burgundians Godomar (534) was defeated, and his kingdom was included in the kingdom of the Franks. In 536 the Ostrogothic king Vitigis renounced Provence in favor of the Franks. In the 30s. 6th c. the Alpine possessions of the Alemanni and the lands of the Thuringians between the Weser and the Elbe were also conquered, and in the 50s. - the lands of the Bavarians on the Danube. Power Merovingian represented an ephemeral political entity. It did not have not only an economic and ethnic community, but also political and judicial-administrative unity (immediately after the death of Clovis, his 4 sons divided the Frankish state among themselves, only sometimes uniting for joint conquest campaigns). As a result of civil strife among the representatives of the house of the ruling dynasty - the Merovingians, power gradually passed into the hands of the mayors, who once held the positions of administrators of the royal court. In 751, Major Pepin the Short, the son of the famous major and commander Charles Martel, deposed the last Merovingian king and became king, founding a dynasty Carolingian.
In 800 the Frankish king Charlemagne, son of Pepin the Short, was declared Roman emperor. Under him, the Frankish state reached its highest peak. The capital was in Aachen. The son of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, became the last sovereign ruler of the unified Frankish state. Louis successfully continued his father's policy of reform, but last years his reigns were spent in wars against his own sons and external enemies. The state found itself in a deep crisis, which a few years after his death led to the collapse of the empire and the formation of several states in its place - the predecessors of modern Germany, Italy and France. By Treaty of Verdun, which in 843 was concluded between the grandchildren of Charlemagne, the French part (the West-Frankish kingdom) went to Charles the Bald, the Italian-Lorraine (Middle Kingdom) - to Lothair, the German - to Louis the German.
The East Frankish state is traditionally considered to be the first German state. During the 10th century the unofficial name "Reich of the Germans" (Regnum Teutonicorum) appeared, which after several centuries became generally recognized (in the form "Reich der Deutschen"). The state included territories east of the Rhine and north of the Alps. The territory of the state was relatively stable and tended to expansion: the eastern part of Lorraine, including the Netherlands, Alsace and Lorraine proper, was annexed in 870, the colonization of the lands inhabited by Slavs along the Elbe began.The border with the West Frankish kingdom, established in 890, lasted until the 14th century. kingdom under Louis the German became Regensburg.
The kingdom actually consisted of five semi-independent large tribal duchies: Saxony, Bavaria, Franconia, Swabia and Thuringia (later Lorraine was added). The power of the king turned out to be quite limited and dependent on the largest feudal lords. The process of enslaving the peasants in the kingdom was still in its initial stage, and in many regions a fairly wide layer of free peasantry remained (Swabia, Saxony, Tyrol). By the end of the 9th c. the principle of the inseparability of the state was formed, the power in which was to be inherited by the eldest son of the deceased monarch. The termination of the German line of the Carolingians in 911 did not lead to the transfer of the throne to the French Carolingians: the East Frankish nobility elected the Franconian Duke Conrad I as their ruler, thus securing the right of the German princes to elect a successor to the king in the absence of a direct heir from the deceased monarch.
A serious threat to the state was the regular raids of the Vikings. In 886 the Vikings reached Paris. The Carolingian Empire at this time was united under the rule of Charles the Fat, who was a weak ruler and lost his power. At the beginning of the 10th c. the situation was complicated by continuous wars with the Hungarians. During the reign of Conrad 1, the central government practically ceased to control the state of affairs in the duchies. In 918, after the death of Conrad, the duke of Saxony was elected king. Heinrich 1 Birder(918-936). Heinrich successfully fought the Hungarians and Danes and created a line of fortifications protecting Saxony from the attacks of the Slavs and Hungarians.

Holy Roman Empire

Heinrich's successor is his son Otto 1 the Great(936-973). Otto took the title "Emperor of the Romans and Franks" - the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation was founded. Soon after accession to the throne, Otto had to fight the dukes of Bavaria, Franconia and Lorraine and their own brothers who joined them and at the same time repel the attacks of the Danes and Slavs. After many years of struggle, Otton was helped by a chance - two of his opponents died in one of the battles, and his younger brother Henry, who tried to send assassins to him, was pardoned and remained faithful to him in the future. Henry received the duchy of Bavaria, Otto's son Liudolf - the duchy of Swabia, Otto himself ruled Saxony and Franconia.
In 950, Otto made the first trip to Italy under the pretext of rescuing the young widow of the Italian king Adelheida, who was kept in captivity and forced into a new marriage. The queen, however, managed to escape on her own and asked for Otto's help. The following year, Otto himself married Adelgeide. After the birth of Adelgeida's son, an internecine war began, which was started by the son of Otto from his first marriage, Liudolf and the Duke of Lorraine. They called on the help of the Hungarians. Otto managed to cope with this uprising. After that, the Hungarians suffered a crushing defeat on the Lech River (955), and then the Slavs were also defeated.
In 961, Otto made a second trip to Italy, where he was called by Pope John 12, who was oppressed by the Duke of Lombardy. Otto easily reached Rome with his army, where he was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Otto had to pacify the Duke of Lombardy and the pope, who had started the turmoil, several more times and insist on choosing a new pope.
With the death of the grandson of Otto 1, Otto 3, the male line of the Saxon dynasty was cut short. became king Heinrich 2 Saint(1002-1024), great-grandson of Heinrich 1 Ptitselov, son of the Bavarian duke, the last representative of the Saxon dynasty. Henry had to fight with the Slavs, Greeks, pacify internal unrest, make campaigns in Italy in order to establish popes loyal to him. However, at the same time, Henry was devoted to the church and canonized after his death. After Henry 2, Conrad 2, the son of Count Speyer, a descendant of Henry 1 the Birdcatcher (Salic, or Franconian, dynasty) was chosen as king. He was succeeded by his son Henry 3 the Black.
The title adopted by Otto 1 allowed him to fully control the ecclesiastical institutions in his domains. The church became one of the main pillars of imperial power. The integration of the church into the state structure reached its apogee under Conrad II (1024-1039) and Henry III (1039-1056), when the classical imperial church system took shape.
The state institutions of the empire in the early period remained rather weakly differentiated. The emperor was at the same time the king of Germany, Italy, and after the death in 1032 of the last Burgundian king Rudolph 3 - and of Burgundy. The main political unit in Germany was the tribal duchies: Saxony, Bavaria, Franconia, Swabia, Lorraine (the latter was divided into Lower and Upper in 965) and, from 976, Carinthia. A system of stamps was created along the eastern border (Northern, Saxon Eastern, Bavarian Eastern, later Meissen, Brandenburg, Lusatian). In the 980s. the Slavs for some time again threw back the Germans over the Elbe and captured Hamburg, but at the beginning of the 11th century. the empire regained its position in the region, although further progress stopped the entry of Poland and Hungary as independent kingdoms into the European Christian community. In Italy, stamps were also formed (Tuscany, Verona, Ivrea), but by the beginning of the 12th century. this structure collapsed. The main problem for the emperors was to maintain power both north and south of the Alps. Otto 2, Otto 3 and Conrad 2 were forced to stay in Italy for a long time, where they fought against the offensive of the Arabs and Byzantines, and also periodically suppressed the unrest of the Italian patriciate, however, to finally establish imperial power on peninsula did not succeed. With the exception of the short reign of Otto III, who moved his residence to Rome, Germany has always remained the core of the empire. The reign of Conrad 2 (1024-1039), the first monarch of the Salian dynasty, includes the formation of an estate of petty knights (including ministerials), whose rights the emperor guaranteed in his decree “Constitutio de feudis” of 1036, which formed the basis of imperial fief law . The heredity and inalienability of fiefs was recognized. Small and medium chivalry later became one of the main bearers of integration trends in the empire. Conrad 2 and his successor Henry 3 controlled most of the German regional principalities, independently appointing counts and dukes, and completely dominated the territorial aristocracy and clergy. This made it possible to introduce into imperial law the institute of "God's peace" - the prohibition of internecine wars and military conflicts within the empire.
The apogee of imperial power, achieved under Henry 3, turned out to be short-lived: already during the minority of his son Henry 4(1056-1106) the fall of the influence of the emperor began. The ideas of the Gregorian reform were developed, which affirmed the supremacy of the Pope and the complete independence of church power from secular. Pope Gregory 7 tried to eliminate the possibility of the emperor's influence on the process of filling church positions and condemned the practice of secular investiture. However, Henry 4 resolutely stood up for the prerogatives of the emperor, which led to a long fight for investment between the emperor and the pope. In 1075, the appointment of Henry 4 as a bishop in Milan became the reason for the excommunication of the emperor by Gregory 7 from the church and the release of his subjects from the oath of allegiance. Under pressure from the German princes, in 1077 the emperor was forced to make a penitential "walk to Canossa" and beg the pope for forgiveness. The struggle for investiture ended only in 1122 with the signing of the Concordat of Worms, which secured a compromise between secular and spiritual authorities: the election of bishops had to take place freely and without simony (buying a position for money), but secular investiture for land holdings, and thus the opportunity imperial influence on the appointment of bishops and abbots remained. In general, the struggle for investiture significantly weakened the emperor's control over the church, brought the papacy out of imperial dependence and contributed to the rise of the influence of territorial secular and spiritual princes.
The reign of Henry 4 passed in a constant struggle with the popes and their own vassals and sons, who tried to deprive him of power. Henry was excommunicated. To maintain power, Henry relied on ministerials loyal to him (service people who received flax for their own merits, petty chivalry, obliged military service emperor or feudal lord) and large cities. Henry 4 was engaged in the construction of new castles and cathedrals, consecrated the cathedral in Speyer, which he wanted to make imperial. Henry 4 also took Jewish communities under his protection and legislated their rights. After his death, the reign passed to his son Henry 5, with whose death the Salic dynasty ended. After his death, the family property passed to the Hohenstaufen, in whose possessions by that time were Franconia and Swabia. After the death of Henry, Lothair 2 of Saxony (1125-1137) was elected king. The Hohenstaufen tried to fight him, but failed and were forced to recognize his authority. In 1138 Konrad 3 Hohenstaufen was elected emperor.
During the reign of Lothair 2, a struggle began between the two large princely families of Germany - the Hohenstaufen (Swabia, Alsace, Franconia) and the Welfs (Bavaria, Saxony, Tuscany). From this confrontation began the struggle of the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy. The Guelphs (on behalf of the Welfs) advocated limiting the power of the empire in Italy and strengthening the role of the pope. The Ghibellines (from the name of the Hohenstaufen castle Waiblingen near Stuttgart) were adherents of the imperial power.
After the death of Conrad 3 in 1152, his nephew became emperor Friedrich 1 Barbarossa(Italian "red-bearded", 1152-1190), whose reign was a period of significant strengthening of central power in Germany. Even as the Duke of Swabia, he participated in the Second Crusade, in which he became famous. The main direction of the policy of Frederick 1 was the restoration of imperial power in Italy. Frederick made six campaigns in Italy, during the first of which he was crowned in Rome with the imperial crown. At the Ronkal Diet of 1158, an attempt was made to legalize the emperor's omnipotence in Italy and Germany. The strengthening of the emperor on the Apennine Peninsula provoked resistance from both Pope Alexander 3 and the Kingdom of Sicily, and the northern Italian urban communes, which in 1167 united in the Lombard League. The Lombard League managed to organize an effective rebuff to the plans of Frederick 1 in relation to Italy and in 1176 inflict a crushing defeat on the imperial troops at the battle of Legnano, which forced the emperor in 1187 to recognize the autonomy of the cities. In Germany itself, the position of the emperor was significantly strengthened due to the division of the Welf possessions in 1181 and the formation of a fairly large Hohenstaufen domain. Frederick Barbarossa created a large European army for his time, the main force of which was a heavy knightly cavalry clad in steel armor, and improved its organization. At the end of his life, Frederick I went on the Third Crusade, during which he died in 1190, drowning while crossing the river.
Frederick Barbarossa's successor was his son Henry 6(1169 - 1197). He managed to expand the territorial power of the emperor, subjugating the Sicilian kingdom. It was in this state that the Hohenstaufen were able to create a centralized hereditary monarchy with strong royal power and a developed bureaucratic system, while in the German lands proper the strengthening of regional princes did not allow not only to consolidate the autocratic system of government, but also to ensure the transfer of the imperial throne by inheritance. After the death of Henry 6 in 1197, two Roman kings Philip of Swabia and Otto 4 of Brunswick were elected at once, which led to internecine war in Germany.
In 1220 he was crowned emperor Friedrich 2 Hohenstaufen(1212-1250), son of Henry 6 and king of Sicily, who resumed the Hohenstaufen policy of establishing imperial rule in Italy. He went into a tough conflict with the Pope, was excommunicated and declared the Antichrist, but nevertheless undertook a crusade to Palestine and was elected king of Jerusalem. During the reign of Frederick 2 in Italy, the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines developed with varying success, but on the whole it was quite successful for Frederick 2: his troops controlled most of Northern Italy, Tuscany and Romagna, not to mention the emperor's hereditary possessions in Southern Italy. The focus on Italian politics, however, forced Frederick 2 to make significant concessions to the German princes. According to the Agreement with the princes of the church of 1220 and the Decree in favor of the princes of 1232, sovereign rights were recognized for the bishops and secular princes of Germany within the territory of their possessions. These documents have become legal basis for the formation of semi-independent hereditary principalities within the empire and the expansion of the influence of regional rulers to the detriment of the prerogatives of the emperor.

Late Middle Ages

With the death of the sons of Frederick II, the Hohenstaufen dynasty ended and the period of interregnum (1254-1273) began. But even after his overcoming and accession to the throne in 1273, Mr. Rudolf I of Habsburg the importance of the central government continued to decline, and the role of the rulers of regional principalities - to increase. Although the monarchs made attempts to restore the former power of the empire, dynastic interests came to the fore: the elected kings, first of all, tried to expand the possessions of their families as much as possible: the Habsburgs entrenched themselves in the Austrian lands, the Luxembourgs in the Czech Republic, Moravia and Silesia, the Wittelsbachs in Brandenburg, Holland and Gennegau. It was in the late Middle Ages that the principle of the election of the emperor acquired a real embodiment: during the second half of the 13th - the end of the 15th century. the emperor was really selected from several candidates, and attempts to transfer power by inheritance usually failed. The influence of large territorial princes on the policy of the empire increased sharply, with the seven most powerful princes arrogating to themselves the exclusive right to elect and dismiss the emperor. This was accompanied by the strengthening of the middle and petty nobility, the disintegration of the imperial domain of the Hohenstaufen and the growth of feudal strife.
In 1274, in Nuremberg, Rudolf 1 of Habsburg (1273-1291) convened the Reichstag - a meeting of representatives of the lands. They took part in the discussions, but the decision was left to the emperor. It was decided to return the property and rights of the empire seized after Frederick II. They could be returned back with the consent of the king and electors. This decision was directed against Ottokar 2, who created a large state from the Czech Republic, Moravia, Austria, Styria, Carinthia. Ottokar tried to fight for these possessions, but was defeated. The resulting lands Rudolf secured as a hereditary possession for the Habsburgs.
At the same time, Guelphism finally triumphed in Italy, and the empire lost its influence on the Apennine Peninsula. On the western borders, France strengthened, which managed to withdraw the lands of the former Burgundian kingdom from the influence of the emperor. Some revival of the imperial idea during the reign of Henry 7 (the first representative of the Luxembourg dynasty, 1308-1313), who committed in 1310-1313. expedition to Italy and for the first time after Frederick 2 crowned the imperial crown in Rome, however, was short-lived: starting from the end of the 13th century. The Holy Roman Empire was more and more limited exclusively to the German lands, turning into a national state formation of the German people. At the same time, the process of liberation of imperial institutions from the power of the papacy was also going on: during the period of the Avignon captivity of the popes, the role of the pope in Europe sharply decreased, which allowed the German king Ludwig of Bavaria, and after him the major regional German princes, to withdraw from subordination to the Roman throne.
Into the reign Carla 4(1346-1378, Luxembourg dynasty) the center of the empire moved to Prague (Charles was also a Czech king). The reign of Charles is considered the golden age of Czech history. Charles 4 managed to hold important reform the constitutional structure of the empire: The Golden Bull of the Emperor of 1356 established a 7-member college of electors, which included the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, Trier, the King of the Czech Republic, the Elector of the Palatinate, the Duke of Saxony and the Margrave of Brandenburg. Members of the college of electors received the exclusive right to elect the emperor and actually determine the direction of the policy of the empire, the electors were also recognized the right of internal sovereignty, which consolidated the fragmentation of the German states. At the same time, any influence of the pope on the election of the emperor was eliminated.
Crisis moods in the empire intensified after the plague of 1347-1350, which led to a sharp drop in population and dealt a significant blow to the German economy. At the same time, the second half of the 14th century. was marked by the rise of the North German union of Hansa trading cities, which has become an important factor in international politics and has gained significant influence in the Scandinavian states, England and the Baltic states. In southern Germany, the cities also turned into an influential political force that opposed the princes and knights, but in a series of military conflicts at the end of the 14th century. The Swabian and Rhine unions of cities were defeated by the troops of the imperial princes.
In 1438, Albrecht 2 Habsburg was elected king of Austria, Bohemia, Hungary and Germany. Since that year, representatives of this dynasty have constantly become emperors of the empire.
By the end of the 15th century the empire was in a deep crisis caused by the inconsistency of its institutions with the requirements of the time, the collapse of the military and financial organization and the actual liberation of the regional principalities from the power of the emperor. In the principalities, the formation of their own administrative apparatus, military, judicial and tax systems began, and class representative bodies of power (landtags) arose. At Friedrich 3(1440-1493), the emperor was drawn into protracted and unsuccessful wars with Hungary, while in other areas of European politics, the influence of the emperor tended to zero. At the same time, the fall of the emperor's influence in the empire contributed to a more active involvement of the imperial estates in the management processes and the formation of an all-imperial representative body - the Reichstag.
In the 1440s, Gutenberg invented printing.
During the reign of Frederick 3, the weakness of the imperial power manifested itself especially strongly, he took little part in church affairs. In 1446, Frederick concluded the Vienna Concordat with the Holy See, which settled relations between the Austrian monarchs and the Pope of Rome and remained in force until 1806. By agreement with the Pope, Frederick received the right to distribute 100 church benefices and appoint 6 bishops. In 1452 Frederick 3 traveled to Italy and was crowned in Rome by Pope Nicholas 5.
The transformation of the empire in accordance with the requirements of the new time was carried out during the reign of Maximilian I (1486-1519) and Charles 5.
Maximilian 1 married the heiress of the Duchy of Burgundy Mary, which brought the Habsburgs possessions in Burgundy and the Netherlands. Soon the war for the Burgundian succession began. Maximilian's son, Philip, married a Spanish princess, causing his son Charles to become the Spanish king. Maximilian himself, after the death of his first wife, was betrothed in absentia to Anna of Brittany, and his daughter to the French king Charles 8. However, Charles 8 went to Brittany and forced Anna to marry him, which caused condemnation throughout Europe. At this time, Maximilian had to fight the Hungarians, who even took Vienna for a while. Maximilian was able to defeat the Hungarians after the sudden death of the Hungarian king. The dynastic marriages of Maximilian's granddaughter with the son of the King of Hungary and Bohemia Vsevolod 2, and the grandson of Maximilian with the daughter of Vsevolod 2 subsequently made it possible to annex these two states to the Habsburg possessions. Maximilian created a new, centralized system in Austria government controlled and laid the foundation for the unification of the ancestral Habsburg possessions into a single Austrian state.
In 1495, Maximilian I convened the General Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire in Worms, for approval by which he submitted a draft reform of the state administration of the empire. As a result of the discussion, the so-called "Imperial Reform" (German: Reichsreform) was adopted. Germany was divided into six imperial districts (four more were added in 1512). The governing body of the district was the district assembly, in which all state formations on the territory of the district had the right to participate: secular and spiritual principalities, imperial knights and free cities. Each state formation had one vote (in some districts, this ensured the predominance of imperial knights, small principalities and cities, which constituted the main support of the emperor). The districts resolved the issues of military construction, organization of defense, recruitment of the army, as well as the distribution and collection of imperial taxes. Of great importance was also the creation of the Supreme Imperial Court - the supreme body of the judiciary in Germany, which became one of the main instruments of the emperor's influence on the territorial princes and a mechanism for pursuing a unified policy in all state formations of the empire. A system was developed for financing general imperial expenses, which, although it faltered due to the unwillingness of the electors to contribute their share to the general budget, nevertheless gave the emperors the opportunity to pursue an active foreign policy and made it possible to repel the Turkish threat at the beginning of the 16th century.
However, Maximilian's attempts to deepen the reformation of the empire and create unified executive authorities, as well as a unified imperial army, failed: the princes of the empire strongly opposed and did not allow these proposals of the emperor to be passed through the Reichstag. Moreover, the imperial estates refused to finance the Italian campaigns of Maximilian 1, which sharply weakened the position of the emperor in the international arena and in the empire itself. Maximilian's military campaigns were unsuccessful, but he created a new type of mercenary army, which was further developed in Europe, and the practice of selling German soldiers to other armies began under him.
Realizing the institutional weakness of imperial power in Germany, Maximilian I continued the policy of his predecessors to isolate the Austrian monarchy from the empire: as Archduke of Austria, he refused to participate in the financing of imperial institutions, did not allow imperial taxes to be collected on Austrian lands. The Austrian duchies did not participate in the work of the Imperial Reichstag and other general bodies. Austria was actually placed outside the empire, its independence was expanded. Practically all the policy of Maximilian I was carried out primarily in the interests of Austria and the Habsburg dynasty, and only secondarily in Germany.
In 1499, Maximilian suffered a crushing defeat from the Swiss Union and, under the Treaty of Basel, the independence of Switzerland was actually recognized not only from the Habsburgs, but also from the empire.
Of great importance for the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire was also the rejection of the principle of the need for the coronation of the emperor by the pope in order to legitimize his rights to the title of emperor. In 1508, Maximilian tried to make an expedition to Rome for his coronation, but was not let through by the Venetians, who controlled the routes from Germany to Italy. On February 4, 1508, at a festive ceremony in Trient, he was proclaimed emperor. Pope Julius 2, who needed Maximilian 1 to create a broad coalition against Venice, allowed him to use the title of "Elect Emperor". Subsequently, the successors of Maximilian 1 (except for Charles V) no longer aspired to the coronation, and the provision entered into imperial law that the very election of the German king by the electors makes him emperor. From that time on, the empire received its new official name - the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation".
During the reign of Maximilian 1 in Germany, the flourishing of the humanist movement was observed. The ideas of Erasmus of Rotterdam, the Erfurt circle of humanists gained European fame. The emperor supported the arts, sciences and new philosophical ideas.

Reformation and Thirty Years' War

Maximilian 1's successor was his grandson Carl 5(King of Germany 1519-1530, Holy Roman Emperor 1530-1556). Huge lands were under his control: Holland, Zeeland, Burgundy, Spain, Lombardy, Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Roussillon, Canaries, West Indies, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, Istria. He himself annexed Tunisia, Luxembourg, Artois, Piacenza, New Granada, New Spain, Peru, the Philippines, etc. Charles 5 was last emperor crowned by the pope in Rome. Under him, a single criminal code was approved for the entire empire. During his reign, Charles waged successful wars with France for Italian possessions and less successful ones with Turkey. In 1555, disillusioned with the idea of ​​a pan-European empire, Charles gave the Dutch and Spanish possessions to his son Philip. In Germany and Austria, from 1531, his brother Ferdinand 1 ruled. In 1556, the emperor renounced the title of emperor and retired to a monastery. Ferdinand I became emperor.
At the end of the reign of Maximilian, 1517, in Wittenberg, Martin Luther nailed to the door of the church the "95 Theses" in which he attacked the existing abuses of the Catholic Church. This moment is considered the beginning reformation, which ended in 1648 with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia.
The causes of the Reformation were the emergence centralized states, the economic crisis after the appearance of a huge amount of American gold, the ruin of banks, the dissatisfaction of various segments of the European population with the moral decay of the Catholic Church, which was accompanied by economic and political monopolization. Throughout the Middle Ages, the church ideally fit into the existing feudal system, used the hierarchy of feudal society, owned up to a third of all cultivated land and formed an ideology. The stratum of the bourgeoisie that appeared in the Renaissance needed a new ideology and a new church. In addition, new humanistic ideas appeared at this time, the intellectual environment changed. Back in the 14th century. in England, the first protests against the Catholic Church (John Wyclif) began, they were adopted in the Czech Republic, where they became the basis for the ideas of Jan Hus.
In Germany, which by the beginning of the 16th century. still remained a politically fragmented state, dissatisfaction with the church was shared by almost all classes. Martin Luther, Doctor of Theology, opposed the sale of indulgences, proclaimed that the Church and the clergy are not mediators between man and God, and refuted the authority of church ordinances and papal decrees, declaring that the only source of truth is Holy Scripture. In 1520, with a huge gathering of people, Luther burned a papal bull condemning his views. Charles V summoned Luther to the Imperial Diet in Worms in order to convince him to renounce his views, but Luther replied: “I stand on that. I can't do otherwise. God help me." According to the Edict of Worms, Luther was outlawed in the territory of the Holy Roman Empire. From that moment began the persecution of Luther's supporters. Luther himself was kidnapped on his way from Worms by the people of Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, who decided to protect Luther. He was placed in the Wartburg castle and only the Elector's secretary knew about his whereabouts. At the Wartburg, Luther began translating the Bible into German. Luther's speech at Worms caused a spontaneous burgher movement, and then the actions of the imperial chivalry. Soon (1524) began Peasant uprising. The peasants perceived Luther's reform as a call for social transformation. In 1526 the uprising was crushed. After the Peasant War at the Reichstag in Speyer, the Edict of Worms was suspended, but three years later it was renewed, for which the Speyer protest was filed. By its name, the supporters of the Reformation began to be called Protestants. The protest was signed by six princes (including the Elector of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, the Landgrave of Hesse) and free cities (including Augsburg, Ulm, Konstanz, Lindau, Heilbronn, etc.).
In 1530, the opposing parties made attempts to reach an agreement at the Augsburg Reichstag. Luther's friend Melanchthon presented there a document called the Augsburg Confession. After the Reistag, the Protestant princes formed the defensive Schmalkaldic League.
In 1546, Luther died, Emperor Charles 5, after victories over the French and Turks, decided to take up internal affairs Germany. As a result, the Protestant troops were defeated. At the Reichstag in Augsburg in 1548, an interim was announced - an agreement between Catholics and Protestants, according to which the Protestants were forced to make significant concessions. However, Karl failed to implement the plan: Protestantism managed to take deep roots on German soil and had long been a religion not only of princes and merchants, but also of peasants and miners, as a result of which interim met with stubborn resistance. Protestantism was adopted by many large principalities (Saxony, Brandenburg, Electoral Council, Braunschweig-Luneburg, Hesse, Württemberg), as well as the most important imperial cities - Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Hamburg, Lübeck. The church electors of the Rhine, Braunschweig-Wolfenbuttel, Bavaria, Austria, Lorraine, Augsburg, Salzburg and some other states remained Catholic. In 1552, the Protestant Schmalkaldic Union, together with the French King Henry II, launched a second war against the emperor, which ended in their victory. After the second Schmalkaldic War, the Protestant and Catholic princes concluded the Augsburg Religious Peace (1555) with the emperor, which established guarantees of religious freedom for the imperial estates (electors, secular and spiritual princes, free cities and imperial knights). But despite the demands of the Lutherans, the Peace of Augsburg did not grant the right to choose a religion to subjects of imperial princes and knights. It was understood that each ruler himself determines the religion in his possessions. Later, this provision was transformed into the principle of "whose power, that is faith." The concession of the Catholics regarding the confession of their subjects was the fixation in the text of the agreement of the right to emigrate for the inhabitants of the principalities who did not wish to accept the religion of their ruler, and they were guaranteed the inviolability of the person and property.
The abdication of Charles 5 and the division of the possessions of the Habsburgs in 1556, as a result of which Spain, Flanders and Italy went to son Philip 2, and the Austrian lands and the post of emperor to brother Ferdinand 1, also contributed to the stabilization of the situation in the empire, as it eliminated the danger of coming to power uncompromising Catholic Philip 2. Ferdinand 1, one of the authors of the Augsburg Religious World and a consistent guide to strengthening the empire through a close alliance with the princes and increasing the efficiency of the functioning of imperial institutions, is rightfully considered the actual founder of the modern empire. The successor of Ferdinand 1, Emperor Maximilian 2, himself sympathized with Protestantism, and during his reign (1564-1576) he managed, relying on the imperial princes of both confessions, to maintain the territorial and religious order in the empire, resolving emerging conflicts using exclusively the legal mechanisms of the empire. The main development trend in the second half of the 16th - early 17th century was the dogmatic and organizational formation and isolation of three confessions - Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism, and the confessionalization of all aspects of the social and political life of the German states associated with this. In modern historiography, this period is called the "Confessional era".
By the end of the 16th century the period of relative stability is over. The Catholic Church wanted to win back its lost influence. Censorship and the Inquisition intensified, the Jesuit order strengthened. The Vatican in every possible way pushed the remaining Catholic rulers to eradicate Protestantism in their possessions. The Habsburgs were Catholics, but their imperial status obliged them to adhere to the principles of religious tolerance. Therefore, they gave way to the main place in counter-reformation Bavarian rulers. For an organized rebuff to the growing pressure, the Protestant princes of South and West Germany united in the Evangelical Union, created in 1608. In response, the Catholics united in the Catholic League (1609). Both alliances were immediately supported by foreign states. Under these conditions, the activities of the all-imperial bodies - the Reichstag and the Judicial Chamber - were paralyzed.
In 1617, both branches of the Habsburg dynasty entered into a secret agreement - the Treaty of Oñate, which settled the existing differences. Under its terms, Spain was promised lands in Alsace and northern Italy, which would provide a land connection between the Spanish Netherlands and the Italian possessions of the Habsburgs. In exchange, the Spanish king Philip III renounced his claims to the crown of the empire and agreed to support the candidacy of Ferdinand of Styria. reigning emperor The Holy Roman Empire and King Matthew of the Czech Republic had no direct heirs, and in 1617 he forced the Czech Sejm to recognize as his successor his nephew Ferdinand of Styria, an ardent Catholic and a pupil of the Jesuits. He was extremely unpopular in the predominantly Protestant Czech Republic, which was the reason for the uprising, which escalated into a long conflict - Thirty Years' War.
On the side of the Habsburgs were: Austria, most of the Catholic principalities of Germany, Spain, united with Portugal, the Holy See, Poland. On the side of the anti-Habsburg coalition - France, Sweden, Denmark, the Protestant principalities of Germany, the Czech Republic, Transylvania, Venice, Savoy, the Republic of the United Provinces, supported by England, Scotland and Russia. In general, the war turned out to be a clash of traditional conservative forces with growing nation-states.
The Evangelical Union was headed by the Elector of the Palatinate Frederick 5. However, the army of the Catholic League under the command of General Tilly pacified upper Austria, and the imperial troops - lower Austria. After uniting after that, they crushed the Czech uprising. Having finished with the Czech Republic, the Habsburg troops went to the Palatinate. In 1622, Mannheim and Heidelberg fell. Frederick 5 lost his possessions and was expelled from the Holy Roman Empire, the Evangelical Union collapsed. Bavaria received the Upper Palatinate and Spain captured the Palatinate.
The defeat at the first stage of the war forced the Protestants to rally. In 1624, France and Holland concluded the Treaty of Compiègne, which was joined by England, Sweden, Denmark, Savoy, and Venice.
In the second stage of the war, the Habsburg troops attacked the Netherlands and Denmark. An army was created under the command of the Czech nobleman Albrecht von Wallenstein, who offered to feed the army by plundering the occupied territories. The Danes were defeated, Wallenstein occupied Mecklenburg and Pomerania.
Sweden was the last major state capable of changing the balance of power. Gustav 2 Adolf, King of Sweden, sought to stop Catholic expansion, as well as establish his control over the Baltic coast of northern Germany. He was generously subsidized by Cardinal Richelieu, the first minister of Louis 13. Until then, Sweden had been kept out of the war by the war with Poland in the struggle for the Baltic coast. By 1630, Sweden had ended the war and secured Russian support. The Catholic League was defeated by the Swedes in several battles. In 1632, first General Tilly died, then King Gustavus Adolphus. In March 1633 Sweden and the German Protestant principalities formed the Heilbronn League; all military and political power in Germany passed to an elected council headed by the Swedish chancellor Axel Oxenstierna. But the absence of a single authoritative commander began to affect the Protestant troops, and in 1634 the previously invincible Swedes suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of Nördlingen. The emperor and princes concluded the Peace of Prague (1635), which ended the Swedish phase of the war. This treaty provided for the return of possessions to the framework of the Peace of Augsburg, the unification of the army of the emperor and the armies of the German states into the army of the Holy Roman Empire, and the legalization of Calvinism.
However, this agreement did not suit France, so in 1635 she entered the war herself. In 1639, France managed to break through to Swabia, in 1640 Brandenburg left the war, in 1642 Saxony was defeated, in 1647 Bavaria capitulated, Spain was forced to recognize the independence of the Netherlands. In this war, all the armies have exhausted their forces. The war brought the greatest damage to Germany, where up to 5 million people died. Epidemics of typhus, plague and dysentery took place throughout Europe. As a result, in 1648 the Peace of Westphalia was concluded. Under its terms, Switzerland gained independence, France received South Alsace and Lorraine, Sweden - the island of Rügen, Western Pomerania, the Duchy of Bremen. Only the war between Spain and France remained unsettled.
The secularization of church holdings in Northern Germany was recognized. Adherents of all religions (Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism) gained equal rights in the empire, the transition of the ruler to another faith ceased to mean a change in the faith of his subjects. Religious problems were separated from administrative and legal issues, and for their solution in the Reichstag and the imperial court, the principle of confessional parity was introduced: each denomination was given an equal number of votes, which restored the efficiency of the Reichstag and the court. The Peace of Westphalia also redistributed power between the institutions of power within the empire: current issues, including legislation, the judiciary, taxation, ratification peace treaties, were transferred to the competence of the Reichstag, which became a permanent body. This significantly changed the balance of power between the emperor and the estates in favor of the latter and established the status quo, contributed to the national unity of the German people. The rights of German specific princes expanded. Now they received the right to vote in matters of war and peace, the amount of taxes and laws relating to the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. They were allowed to enter into alliances with foreign powers, as long as they did not endanger the interests of the emperor and the empire. Thus, the German specific principalities became subjects of international law. The strengthening of the power of the specific princes marked the beginning of the federal structure of present-day Germany.

Germany after the Peace of Westphalia

After the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia, the role of the leading power passed to France, so the rest of the countries began to draw closer to fight it. The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) was the emperor's revenge Leopold 1 of Habsburg(1658-1705) during the Thirty Years' War: French hegemony in Western Europe collapsed, the Southern Netherlands, Naples and Milan came under the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs. In the northern direction, a partnership of the Habsburgs, Poland, Hanover and Brandenburg developed in opposition to Sweden, as a result of which, after the Dutch War (1672-1678) and the Second Northern war(1700-1721) Swedish dominance in the Baltic region came to an end, and most of its possessions in the territory of the empire (Western Pomerania, Bremen and Verden) were divided between Brandenburg and Hanover. The Habsburgs achieved their main success in the southeast direction: in a series of military campaigns against the Ottoman Empire in the last quarter of the 17th century. Hungary, Transylvania and northern Serbia, which became part of the Habsburg Monarchy, were liberated, which dramatically increased the political prestige and economic base of the emperors. Wars with France and Turkey in the late 17th - early 18th century. caused a revival of imperial patriotism and once again turned the imperial throne into a symbol of the national community of the German people.
The establishment in the Palatinate in 1685 of the Catholic line of the Wittelsbach dynasty allowed Emperor Leopold I to restore positions in the west of the country and rally the Rhine states around the imperial throne. The main allies of the imperial throne in this region were the electorate of the Palatinate, Hesse-Darmstadt, Mainz and the imperial knights of Westphalia, the Middle Rhine and Swabia. In the southern sector of Germany in the late 17th - early 18th century. completely dominated by Bavaria, the elector of which competed in its influence with the emperor himself. In the northern part of the empire, in the conditions of the strengthening of Brandenburg, Saxony, whose ruler converted to Catholicism in 1697, as well as Hanover, which achieved the ninth title of elector in 1692, passed into a closer alliance with the Habsburgs. Brandenburg was also included in the processes of imperial integration: orientation on the emperor became the basis of the policy of the "Great Elector", and in 1700 his son received the consent of Leopold I to accept the title of king of Prussia.
Since 1662, the Reichstag has become a permanent body that met in Regensburg. His work was quite effective and contributed to the preservation of the unity of the empire. Emperor Leopold I took an active part in the work of the Reichstag, who consistently pursued a policy of restoring the role of the imperial throne and further integrating the estates. The representative function of the imperial court in Vienna began to play an important role, which turned into a center of attraction for nobles from all over Germany, and the city itself became the main center of the imperial baroque. The strengthening of the position of the Habsburgs in hereditary lands, the successful policy of dynastic marriages and the distribution of titles and positions also significantly contributed to the rise of the emperor's influence. At the same time, the processes of consolidation at the imperial level were superimposed on regional integration: the largest German principalities formed their own branched state apparatus, a magnificent princely court that rallied the local nobility, and armed forces that allowed the electors to pursue a policy more independent of the emperor. During the wars with France and Turkey, the role of the imperial districts significantly increased, which since 1681 took over the function of recruiting an army, collecting imperial taxes and maintaining permanent military contingents in the empire. Later, associations of imperial districts were formed, which made it possible to organize a more effective defense of the imperial borders.
Under the successors of Leopold 1, a desire for absolutism arose. The emperors again began to claim Italian territories, to interfere in the internal affairs of the German principalities, which caused their resistance. At the same time, the power of large principalities (Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony, Hanover) was growing, which sought to pursue their own independent policy in Europe, little considering the interests of the empire and the emperor. By the middle of the 18th century. the unity of the empire was significantly undermined, the large German principalities practically got out of the control of the emperor, the tendencies of disintegration clearly prevailed over the emperor’s weak attempts to maintain a balance of power in Germany.

Kingdom of Prussia

According to the Peace of Westphalia, the Electorate of Brandenburg received a number of territories, and as early as 1618, the Duchy of Prussia ceded to it. In 1701 Frederick 3, Elector of Brandenburg, with the consent of Emperor Leopold 1, was crowned King Frederick 1 of Prussia.
After the death of Friedrich 1 in 1713, Friedrich Wilhelm 1, nicknamed the Soldier King, ascended the Prussian throne. During his reign, the Prussian army became the strongest army in Europe. From 1740 to 1786 King of Prussia was Frederick II the Great. During this period, Prussia participated in numerous wars. The economic recovery, the creation under Frederick I and Friedrich Wilhelm I of an effective bureaucratic system of government and the formation of a strong army brought Prussia to the fore among the German states, which led to an intensification of rivalry with Austria. Prussia actually ceased to take part in general imperial issues: norms protecting the interests of the estates did not operate on its territory, the decisions of the imperial court were not enforced, the army did not take part in the emperor’s military campaigns, and the work of the Upper Saxon imperial district was paralyzed. As a result of the growing divergence between the actual military and political power of Prussia and other large German principalities and the outdated imperial hierarchy, by the middle of the 18th century. an acute systemic crisis of the Holy Roman Empire is ripe. After the death of Emperor Charles 6 in 1740 and the suppression of the direct male line of the House of Habsburg, the Austro-Prussian confrontation resulted in open war. The Silesian Wars (1740-1745) between the Prussian King Frederick II and the Austrian Archduchess Maria Theresa ended in the defeat of Austria and the loss of Silesia. The attempts of the Habsburgs to restore the efficiency of the imperial structures and put them at the service of the interests of Austria ran into the decisive resistance of the principalities, led by Prussia, which assumed the role of defender of German freedoms from the "absolutist" claims of the Habsburgs.
In 1756-1763. Prussia participated in the Seven Years' War, in which it won, but suffered heavy losses. In this war, Prussia had to fight in alliance with England against Austria, France and Russia.
Friedrich 2 died in 1786 in Potsdam, leaving no direct heir. His nephew Friedrich Wilhelm 2 became his successor. Under him, the system of government created by Frederick began to collapse, and the decline of Prussia began. Under Friedrich Wilhelm II, during the French Revolution, Prussia, together with Austria, formed the core of the 1st anti-French coalition, however, after a series of defeats, it was forced to sign a separate Treaty of Basel with France in 1795. In 1797, after the death of the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm 2 on the throne was taken by his son, Friedrich Wilhelm 3. Friedrich Wilhelm turned out to be a weak and indecisive ruler. In the Napoleonic wars, for a long time he could not decide which side he was on. As a result, according to the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, Prussia lost about half of its territories.
To bring the country out of the crisis in which it found itself after the defeat, reforms were undertaken, which subsequently yielded rich results. A small group of officials represented by the head of the Prussian government, Baron Heinrich Friedrich Karl Stein and Prince Karl August von Hardenberg, generals Gerhard von Scharnhorst and August Wilhelm Nidhardt Grisenau, official and scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt, developed the largest reform project in German history, a package of so-called "Prussian reforms" started in 1807. The education system was reformed, general rules for entering the university were created, and an exam for teachers was introduced. The reformers abolished the monopoly of the shops and allowed citizens to engage in any economic activity. In 1811, serfdom was abolished, the peasants received the right to have private property and choose a profession, the right to buy land. Ministries were created, the post of chancellor was introduced - the chairman of the State Council (a body that gives advice to the king). In addition, the army and communal self-government were reformed, and an income tax was introduced, replacing the poll tax. As a result of reforms over the next few decades, the Prussian economy revived and a free labor market emerged. Industry began to develop, and this laid the foundation for the further industrialization of the economy. Many components of the modern German economy, social structure and education were laid down two centuries ago.

Napoleonic Wars and the end of the empire

In 1785, under the leadership of the Prussian king Frederick 2 the Great, the German Princes' Union was created as an alternative to the imperial institutions controlled by the Habsburgs. The Austro-Prussian rivalry deprived the rest of the German states of the opportunity to exert any influence on the internal affairs of the empire and made it impossible to carry out reforms. This led to "empire fatigue" of secular and ecclesiastical principalities, knights and free cities, which historically were the main pillar of the construction of the Holy Roman Empire. The stability of the empire was finally lost.
The outbreak of the French Revolution initially led to the consolidation of the empire. In 1790, the Reichenbach Alliance was concluded between the emperor and Prussia, which temporarily ended the Austro-Prussian confrontation, and in 1792 the Pillnitz Convention was signed, according to which both states pledged to provide military assistance to the French king. However, the goals of the new Austrian emperor Franz 2 was not the strengthening of the empire, but the implementation of the foreign policy plans of the Habsburgs, the expansion of the Austrian monarchy, including at the expense of the German principalities, and the expulsion of the French from Germany. The Prussian king had similar aspirations. On March 23, 1793, the Reichstag declared imperial war on France.
By this time, the left bank of the Rhine and the Austrian Netherlands were occupied by the French, and Frankfurt was burned. The imperial army was extremely weak. The subjects of the empire sought to limit as much as possible the participation of their military contingents in hostilities outside their own lands, refused to pay military contributions and tried to achieve a separate peace with France as soon as possible. Already in 1794, the imperial coalition began to disintegrate. In 1795, having concluded the Treaty of Basel, Prussia withdrew from the war, followed by the North German states, and in 1796 by Baden and Württemberg. Austrian army, which continued to conduct hostilities, suffered defeats on all fronts. Finally, in 1797, the French army of Napoleon Bonaparte invaded from Italy into the territory of the hereditary possessions of Austria. In the spring of 1797, the Peace of Campoformia was concluded. The emperor transferred Belgium and Lombardy to France and agreed to cede the left bank of the Rhine, and in return received the continental possessions of Venice and the right to increase Austrian possessions in the empire at the expense of the church principalities of southeastern Germany.
The war of the Second Coalition (1799-1801), which broke out in 1799, in which Austria tried to achieve revenge, ended in the complete defeat of the allies. The Treaty of Luneville in 1801 recognized the annexation by France of the left bank of the Rhine, including the lands of the three spiritual electors - Cologne, Mainz and Trier. The decision on the issue of territorial compensation to the affected German princes was submitted to the imperial deputation for consideration. After lengthy negotiations, under pressure from France and Russia, and in fact ignoring the position of the emperor, the final project for the reorganization of the empire was adopted, which was approved in 1803.
Church possessions in Germany were secularized and for the most part became part of large secular states. Almost all (with the exception of six) imperial cities also ceased to exist as subjects of imperial law. In total, not counting the lands annexed by France, more than 100 state entities within the empire were abolished, and the population of the secularized lands reached three million people. Moreover, the largest increments in terms of territory and population were received by the French satellites of Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria, as well as Prussia, under whose authority most of the possessions of the church in Northern Germany passed. After the completion of the territorial delimitation by 1804, about 130 states remained in the Holy Roman Empire, not counting the possessions of the imperial knights.
Territorial changes led to radical changes in the composition of the Reichstag and the College of Electors. The titles of the three church electors were abolished, and instead of them, electoral rights were granted to the rulers of Baden, Württemberg, Hesse-Kassel and the Archchancellor of the Empire, Karl-Theodor von Dahlberg. As a result, in the college of electors, as well as in the chamber of princes of the imperial Reichstag, the majority went over to the Protestants and a strong pro-French party was formed. The liquidation of free cities and church principalities - traditionally the main pillar of the empire - led to the loss of stability by the empire and the complete fall of the influence of the imperial throne. The Holy Roman Empire finally turned into a conglomerate of virtually independent states and lost the prospect of its survival as a single political entity.
In 1805 the War of the Third Coalition began. The army of Franz II was utterly defeated in the battle of Austerlitz, and Vienna was captured by the French. On the side of Napoleon in this war, the troops of Baden, Bavaria and Württemberg fought, which did not cause any negative reaction in the empire. Franz II was forced to conclude the Treaty of Pressburg with France, according to which the emperor not only renounced possessions in Italy, Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Western Austria in favor of Napoleon and his satellites, but also recognized the titles of kings for the rulers of Bavaria and Württemberg, which legally removed these states from under any authority of the emperor and gave them almost complete sovereignty. Austria was finally pushed to the periphery of Germany, and the empire turned into a fiction.
In 1806, Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau (both lines), Berg, Archchancellor Dalberg and eight other German principalities signed an agreement in Paris on the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine under the auspices of Napoleon. On August 1, these states announced their withdrawal from the Holy Roman Empire. Franz 2 announced the resignation of the title and powers of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, explaining this by the impossibility of fulfilling the duties of emperor after the establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine. The Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist.

Unification of the German states

The defeat of Napoleon in 1813-1814. opened the way for the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire. However, the restoration of the Old Empire was no longer possible. In accordance with the Austro-Prussian treaties of 1807 and 1813, the agreements on the accession of the former members of the Confederation of the Rhine to the anti-French coalition of 1814, and, finally, according to the terms of the Paris Peace Treaty of 1814, Germany was to become a confederate entity. An attempt to revive the empire threatened a military conflict between Austria and Prussia and other major German states. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815, Franz II renounced the imperial crown and prevented the project of restoring the empire under the control of an emperor elected from among the German princes. Instead, the German Confederation was established, a confederation of 38 German states, including the hereditary possessions of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, within borders roughly corresponding to the former Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor of Austria remained the chairman of the German Confederation until 1866. The German Union was dissolved after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, it was replaced by the North German Union, and since 1871 - the German Empire under the leadership of Prussia.
The German Union included the Austrian Empire, the kingdoms of Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Hanover, Württemberg, duchies, principalities and 4 city-republics (Frankfurt, Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck). The undisputed military and economic superiority of Austria and Prussia gave them a clear political priority over other members of the alliance, although formally it proclaimed the equality of all participants. At the same time, a number of lands of the Austrian Empire (Hungary, Slovenia, Dalmatia, Istria, etc.) and the Kingdom of Prussia (East and West Prussia, Poznan) were completely excluded from union jurisdiction. The governing body of the German Confederation was the Federal Diet. It consisted of representatives from 34 German states (including Austria) and 4 free cities and met in Frankfurt am Main. The chairmanship in the union belonged to Austria, as the largest state of the German Union in terms of territory and population. Each of the states united in the union had sovereignty and its own system of government. In some, autocracy was preserved, in others the semblance of parliaments (landtags) functioned, and only in seven constitutions were adopted that limited the power of the monarch (Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau, Braunschweig and Saxe-Weimar).
In March 1848, a wave of demonstrations swept across Germany, as well as in France and Austria, including street fighting in Berlin, demanding political freedoms and a united Germany. On May 18, 1848, at the initiative of the liberal intelligentsia, the National All-German Assembly met in Frankfurt am Main, which went down in history as the Frankfurt Parliament. The Frankfurt parliament adopted an imperial constitution, according to which the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm 4 was to become the constitutional monarch of the German Empire. The constitution was recognized by 29 German states, but not by the largest members of the German Confederation (Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, Hanover, Saxony). Friedrich Wilhelm 4 refused to accept the imperial crown from the hands of the revolutionary Frankfurt Parliament, Austria and Prussia withdrew delegates from there. Deprived of political support from the top amid the fading of the revolution, the parliament collapsed. Part of the delegates voluntarily left it, the other extreme left part was dispersed by the Württemberg troops in Stuttgart in June 1849. The unrest that broke out in some states was suppressed by the Prussian troops.
The desire of Austria and Prussia to unite all German lands under their auspices led to the beginning in 1866 of the Austro-Prussian War, the results of which were the annexation by Prussia of the territories of Hanover, Kurgessen, Nassau, Schleswig-Holstein, Frankfurt am Main, achieved as a result of these annexations the territorial connection of the Rhine provinces of Prussia with the main territory of the kingdom and the formation of the North German Confederation, which united 21 German states north of the Main.
In 1870-1871. Prussia waged war against France, as a result of which the South German lands - Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria - were annexed to the North German Union. On January 18, 1871, before the end of the war, at Versailles, Prussian Minister-President Bismarck and Prussian King Wilhelm I announced the creation of the German Empire. France, in addition to losing a number of lands, paid a large indemnity following the war.

German Empire

Bismarck's new empire became one of the most powerful states in continental Europe. Prussian dominance in the new empire was almost as absolute as it had been in the North German Confederation. Prussia had three-fifths of the area of ​​the empire, and two-thirds of its population. The imperial crown became the hereditary Hohenzollern dynasty. From the mid-1880s, Germany joined the process of colonization and in a short time acquired quite extensive colonies.
According to the constitution, the presidency belonged to the Prussian king, who used the title of German emperor. The emperor had the right to participate in legislative matters only in his capacity as King of Prussia. The emperor had the right to promulgate laws; but since he did not constitutionally enjoy even a withholding veto, this right is a simple duty of the executive power. The emperor was given, however, a fairly broad right to issue his own orders. The emperor was given the right, in cases threatening public safety, both in wartime and in peacetime, to declare any part of the empire (with the exception of Bavaria) in a state of siege. The emperor had the right to appoint and dismiss all the main imperial officials, starting with the chancellor. The Imperial Chancellor was the main organ of executive power and, at the same time, the only person responsible to the Federal Council and the Reichstag for all the actions of this power. Apart from the Chancellor himself, there were no ministers in the German Empire. Instead, there were secretaries of state subordinate to the Reich Chancellor, who presided over the imperial departments (railways, postal, legal, treasury, administration of Alsace-Lorraine, foreign and domestic political departments, maritime and, finally, colonial).
Wilhelm 1 died in 1888, and was succeeded on the throne by the crown prince - Frederick 3. The new emperor was an Anglophile and planned to implement broad liberal reforms. But he died 99 days after his ascension to the throne. His heir was the 29-year-old Wilhelm 2.
The new Kaiser quickly spoiled relations with the British and Russian royal families (although he was related to them), became their rival and finally enemy. Wilhelm II removed Bismarck from office in 1890 and launched a campaign of militarization and adventurism in foreign policy that eventually led Germany into isolation and the First World War.
In 1914 the First World War. Germany was in a coalition with Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria. The beginning of the war was successful for Germany: Russian troops were defeated in East Prussia, the German army occupied Belgium and Luxembourg, and invaded Northeast France. Paris was saved, but the threat remained. Germany's allies fought worse: the Austrians were utterly defeated in Galicia, the Turks suffered many defeats on the Caucasian front. Italy betrayed its allies and declared war on Austria-Hungary. Only with the help of the German army, the Austrians and Turks returned some positions, the Italians were defeated at Caporetto. Germany won many victories in the course of active hostilities, but by 1915 a positional war began on all fronts, which was a mutual siege - for attrition. Despite its industrial potential, Germany could not defeat the enemy in a positional war. The German colonies were occupied. The Entente had an advantage in resources, and on November 11, 1918, two days after the start of the revolution, Germany surrendered. After the war, the country lay in ruins, absolutely exhausted. As a result, Germany was gripped by an economic crisis. In four months, the price of a paper stamp fell 382,000 times.
The post-war Treaty of Versailles made Germany fully responsible for the war. The treaty was signed at Versailles, in the Hall of Mirrors, where the German Empire was created. Under this peace treaty, Prussia lost a number of territories that were previously part of it (Upper Silesia, Poznan, part of the provinces of East and West Prussia, Saarland, Northern Schleswig and some others).
Even before the end of the war, the November Revolution of 1918 broke out in Germany, forcing Wilhelm II to abdicate both the Prussian throne and the title of German emperor associated with it. Germany became a republic, the Kingdom of Prussia was renamed the Free State of Prussia.

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic (1919-1934) in Germany lasted most of the peace period between the two world wars. After the March Revolution of 1848, it was the second (and first successful) attempt to establish a liberal democracy in Germany. It ended with the arrival of NSDAP authorities which created a totalitarian dictatorship. Even during the period of its existence, the Weimar state was given the definition of “democracy without democrats”, which was only partially correct, but indicated a significant problem in its structure: in the Weimar Republic there was no strong constitutional consensus that could bind the entire spectrum of political forces - from the right to left. The wave of democratization did not touch the institutions of government, justice, and, above all, the military apparatus inherited from the Kaiser's empire. In the end, the parliamentary majority in the Reichstag was won by parties that rejected the values ​​of parliamentary democracy: the National Socialist German Workers' Party and the German National People's Party on the one hand, and the Communist Party of Germany on the other. The parties of the Weimar Coalition (SPD, Center Party and German Democratic Party), which received this name, formed a government coalition in the Weimar Constituent Assembly, lost their absolute majority already in the first elections to the Reichstag in 1920 and never returned it again. For 14 years, 20 government offices have changed. Eleven cabinets, created by a minority, worked with the permission of the parliamentary majority, and at the end of the Weimar Republic already with the suspended Reichstag, only at the discretion of the Reich President and on the basis of emergency decrees issued instead of laws in accordance with Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. The number of parties in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic often reached 17, and only rarely dropped to 11.
From the moment of its inception, the young republic was forced to fight against the attacks of radicalists from both the right and the left. Left forces accused the Social Democrats of collaborating with the old elite and betraying the ideals of the labor movement. The rightists blamed the supporters of the republic - the "November criminals" - for the defeat in the First World War, reproaching them for having stuck a knife in the back of the "invincible on the battlefield" German army with their revolution.
The Kapp putsch in March 1920 was the first serious test of strength for the republic. Freikorps (paramilitary patriotic formations), which under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles Germany was obliged to disband, under the leadership of General Baron Walther von Lütwitz, captured the government quarter in Berlin and appointed Wolfgang Kapp, the former head of the regional government in Prussia, as Chancellor. The legitimate government first withdrew to Dresden, and then to Stuttgart, and from there called for a general strike against the conspirators. The putschists were soon defeated, the decisive role in this was played by the refusal of the ministerial officials to obey Kapp's orders. The army remained neutral. The government could no longer rely on the support of the Reichswehr. Almost simultaneously with the Kapp Putsch, the Ruhr region was shaken by an attempted workers' uprising. Its suppression by the forces of the Reichswehr and Freikorps ended in bloodshed. The uprisings in the central part of Germany, in Thuringia and Hamburg (the March Uprising of 1921) also ended.
Despite all the tension of the situation and the abundance of conflicts that the young republic had to deal with, democracy began to bear its first fruits. The monetary reform and the flow of loans from the United States under the Dawes plan gave rise to a new phase, characterized by relative stabilization in the economy and politics, the so-called "golden twenties". The fact that despite numerous changes of governments at the helm also worked for stabilization foreign policy left Gustav Stresemann, who, together with his French colleague Aristide Briand, took the first steps towards rapprochement between the two countries. Stresemann consistently sought to revise the Treaty of Versailles and recognize Germany as an equal member of the international community. Germany's entry into the League of Nations and the Locarno Accords marked the first successes in this direction. With the Berlin Treaty with the USSR, which confirmed friendly relations and mutual obligations of neutrality, the Reich Foreign Minister tried to dispel the fears about the unilateral conclusion of an alliance with the West, which took place not only in the USSR, but also in Germany itself. The next milestones on the path of reconciliation with former opponents were the signing of the Briand-Kellogg Pact, which proclaimed the rejection of war as an instrument of politics, as well as the consent to the Young Plan, given by Germany despite serious opposition from the right, expressed in the creation of a popular initiative. The Young Plan finally settled the issues of reparations and became a prerequisite for the early withdrawal of the allied occupying forces from the Rhineland.
On the whole, these years brought only relative, but not absolute, stabilization. And during these years, only two governments were supported by a parliamentary majority, and the majority coalitions were constantly in danger of disintegration. No government lasted its entire term of office. The parties served the interests not so much of the people as of certain narrow circles or were aimed at their own political success. At this time, there were the first signs of an economic crisis caused by the lack of balance in foreign trade, which was leveled off by short-term loans from abroad. With the withdrawal of credit funds, the collapse of the economy began.
The global economic crisis, which affected Germany much more severely than other European countries, played a decisive role in the radicalization of politics. The outbreak of mass unemployment exacerbated the already difficult social and economic situation. All this was accompanied by a prolonged government crisis. In successive elections and government crises, the radical parties, and above all the NSDAP, gained more and more votes.
Faith in democracy and the republic was rapidly declining. The deteriorating economic situation was already imputed to the republic, and the imperial government during 1930 also introduced several new taxes to cover state needs. The voices of those yearning for a “strong hand” that could restore the German Empire to its former greatness grew louder and louder. First of all, the National Socialists responded to the requests of this part of society, who, in their propaganda, concentrated on the personality of Hitler, purposefully created such a “strong” image for him. But not only the right, but also the left forces were getting stronger. The Republican Social Democrats, unlike the liberal ones, went through the elections with virtually no losses, and the Communist Party of Germany even improved its results and turned into a serious force both in parliament and on the streets, where the struggle of the militant organizations of the NSDAP (SA) and the KKE has long moved ( Rot Front)), which looked more and more like a civil war. The militant organization of the republican forces, the Reichsbanner, also took part in the street struggle. Ultimately, all these chaotic armed clashes, often initiated by the National Socialists themselves, played into the hands of Hitler, who was increasingly seen as a "last resort" to restore order.

Third Reich and World War II

The global economic crisis that began in 1929, the rise in unemployment, and the burden of reparations still pressing on the Weimar Republic put the Weimar Republic in front of serious problems. In March 1930, having failed to agree with Parliament on a common financial policy, President Paul Hindenburg appointed a new Reich Chancellor, who no longer relies on the support of the parliamentary majority and depends only on the president himself.
The new chancellor, Heinrich Brüning, puts Germany on austerity. The number of dissatisfied is growing. In the Reichstag elections in September 1930, the National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (NSDAP), led by Hitler, manages to increase the number of its mandates from 12 to 107, and the communists from 54 to 77. Thus, right and left extremists together win almost a third seats in parliament. Under these conditions, any constructive policy becomes practically impossible. In the 1932 elections, the National Socialists receive 37 percent of the vote and become the strongest faction in the Reichstag.
The NSDAP receives support from influential representatives of the business community. Relying on big capital and on his own electoral successes, in August 1932, Hitler turned to Hindenburg with a demand to appoint him Reich Chancellor. Hindenburg initially refuses, but already on January 30, 1933, he succumbs to pressure. However, in the first Nazi cabinet, the NSDAP held only three ministerial posts out of eleven. Hindenburg and his advisers hoped to use the brown movement for their own purposes. However, these hopes turned out to be illusory. Hitler quickly seeks to consolidate his power. Just a few weeks after his appointment as Reichschancellor, Germany was effectively in a continuous state of emergency. After becoming Chancellor, the first thing Hitler asks Hindenburg is to dissolve the Reichstag and call new elections. Meanwhile, the Nazi Minister of the Interior is empowered to ban newspapers, magazines, and meetings that he dislikes at his own discretion. On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag was set on fire. Who is behind the crime is unclear to this day. In any case, Nazi propaganda profited greatly from the incident by attributing the arson to the Communists. The next day, the so-called Decree on the Protection of the People and the State is issued, abolishing the freedoms of the press, assembly and opinion. The NSDAP is conducting the election campaign almost alone. All other parties are half or completely driven underground. All the more surprising are the results of the elections in March 1933: the Nazis fail to gain an absolute majority of votes. Hitler is forced to create a coalition government.
Having failed to get his way through elections, Hitler takes a different path. At his direction, the Law on Emergency Powers is being drafted and implemented. It allows the National Socialists to rule bypassing Parliament. The process of the so-called "attachment to the dominant ideology" of all socio-political forces in the country begins. In practice, this is expressed in the fact that the NSDAP places its people in key positions in the state and society and establishes control over all aspects of public life. The NSDAP becomes a state party. All other parties are either banned or cease to exist on their own. The Reichswehr, the state apparatus and justice practically do not resist the course of initiation to the dominant ideology. Falls under the control of the National Socialists and the police. Almost all power structures in the country obey Hitler. Opponents of the regime are monitored by the Gestapo secret state police. Already in February 1933, the first concentration camps for political prisoners appeared. Paul Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. The Nazi government decides that henceforth the post of President is combined with the post of Reich Chancellor. All previous powers of the President are transferred to the Reich Chancellor - Fuhrer. Hitler's course for a sharp increase in armaments at first wins him the sympathy of the army elite, but then, when it becomes clear that the Nazis are preparing for war, the generals begin to express dissatisfaction. In response, in 1938, Hitler made a radical change in the military leadership.
The Weimar constitution established a federal structure in Germany, the country's territory was divided into regions (lands), which had their own constitutions and authorities. Already on April 7, 1933, the Second Law “On the unification of lands with the Reich” was adopted, according to which the institution of imperial governors (Reichsstathalters) was introduced in the lands of Germany. The task of the governors was to lead local authorities, for which they were granted emergency powers (including the right to dissolve the Landtag, dissolve and form a land government headed by a minister-president). The law "On the new structure of the Reich" of January 30, 1934, the sovereignty of the lands was eliminated, the Landtags in all the lands were dissolved. Germany became a unitary state. In January 1935, the imperial governors became permanent representatives of the government in the states.
On September 1, 1939, German troops invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany. During 1939-1941, Germany defeated Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Greece, Yugoslavia. In June 1941, Germany invaded Soviet Union and occupied part of its territory. In Germany, there was a growing shortage of labor. In all the occupied territories, civilian workers were recruited. In the Slavic territories, a mass export of the able-bodied population was forcibly carried out. France also carried out forced recruitment of workers, whose position in Germany was intermediate between that of civilians and prisoners.
A regime of intimidation was established in the occupied territories. The mass extermination of Jews immediately began, and in some areas (mainly on the territory of the USSR) the extermination of the local non-Jewish population as a preventive measure against the partisan movement. In Germany and some occupied territories, the number of concentration camps, death camps and prisoner-of-war camps grew. In the latter, the situation of Soviet, Polish, Yugoslav and French prisoners of war differed little from the situation of concentration camp prisoners. The position of the British and Americans, as a rule, was better. The methods of terror used by the German administration in the occupied territories ruled out the possibility of cooperation with the local population and caused the growth of the partisan movement in Poland, Belarus and Serbia. Gradually guerrilla war also unfolded in other occupied territories of the USSR and Slavic countries, as well as in Greece and France. In Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, the occupation regime was softer, so there were fewer anti-Nazi speeches. Separate underground organizations also operated in Germany and Austria.
On July 20, 1944, a group of Wehrmacht generals made an unsuccessful attempt at an anti-Nazi coup with an assassination attempt on Hitler. This plot was later called the "Conspiracy of the Generals". Many officers were executed, even those who had only a tangential connection to the conspiracy.
In 1944, the Germans also began to feel the shortage of raw materials. Aviation countries anti-Hitler coalition bombed cities. The aviation of England and the USA almost completely destroyed Hamburg and Dresden. Due to the heavy losses of personnel in October 1944, a Volkssturm was created, in which local residents, including old people and young men, were mobilized. The Werewolf detachments were prepared for future partisan and sabotage activities.
On May 7, 1945, an act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed in Reims, duplicated the next day the Soviet side in Berlin (Karlshorst). May 9 was declared the day of the cessation of hostilities. Then, on May 23 in Flensburg, the government of the Third Reich was arrested.

Germany after World War II

After the termination of the state existence of Germany on May 23, 1945, the territory of the former Austria (divided into 4 zones of occupation), Alsace and Lorraine (returned to France), the Sudetenland (returned to Czechoslovakia), the region of Eupen and Malmedy (returned part of Belgium), the statehood of Luxembourg was restored, the territories of Poland annexed in 1939 (Posen, Wartaland, part of Pomerania) were separated. The Memel (Klaipeda) region was returned to the Lithuanian SSR. East Prussia is divided between the USSR and Poland. The rest is divided into 4 occupation zones - Soviet, American, British and French. The USSR transferred part of its occupation zone east of the Oder and Neisse rivers to Poland.
In 1949, from the American, British and French zones, Federal Republic of Germany. Bonn became the capital of Germany. The first Federal Chancellor of Germany (1949-1963) was Konrad Adenauer, who put forward the concept of a social market economy. Adenauer was one of the founders (1946) and since 1950 the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union party.
Thanks to US assistance under the Marshall Plan, as well as as a result of the implementation of the economic development plans of the country, developed under the leadership of Ludwig Erhard, rapid economic growth was achieved in the 1950s (German economic miracle), which lasted until 1965. To meet the need for cheap labor, Germany supported the influx of guest workers, mainly from Turkey.
In 1955 Germany joined NATO. In 1969, the Social Democrats came to power. They recognized the inviolability of post-war borders, weakened the emergency legislation, and carried out a number of social reforms. During the reign of Federal Chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, there was a significant improvement in relations between the FRG and the USSR, which was further developed in the policy of detente. The Moscow Treaty between the USSR and the FRG of 1970 fixed the inviolability of borders, the renunciation of territorial claims (East Prussia) and declared the possibility of uniting the FRG and the GDR. In the future, the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats alternated in power.
In the Soviet zone in 1949 was formed German Democratic Republic(GDR). In 1952, a course was proclaimed to build socialism in the GDR. On June 17, 1953, a "popular uprising" took place. As a result, instead of collecting reparations, the USSR began to provide economic assistance to the GDR. In the context of the aggravation of the foreign policy situation around the German issue and the mass exodus of qualified personnel from the GDR to West Berlin, on August 13, 1961, the construction of a system of barrier structures between the GDR and West Berlin began - the "Berlin Wall". In the early 1970s began a gradual normalization of relations between the two German states. In June 1973, the Treaty on the Fundamentals of Relations between the GDR and the FRG came into force. In September 1973 the GDR became a full member of the UN and other international organizations. On November 8, 1973, the GDR officially recognized the FRG and established diplomatic relations with it. In the second half of the 1980s, economic difficulties began to increase in the country, in the fall of 1989 a socio-political crisis arose, as a result, the leadership of the SED resigned (October 24 - Erich Honecker, November 7 - Willy Shtof). The new Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED on November 9 decided to allow citizens of the GDR to travel abroad privately without good reason, resulting in the spontaneous fall of the "Berlin Wall". After the victory of the CDU in the elections on March 18, 1990, the new government of Lothar de Maizières began intensive negotiations with the government of the Federal Republic of Germany on issues of German unification. In May and August 1990, two Treaties were signed containing the conditions for the accession of the GDR to the FRG. On September 12, 1990, the Treaty on the Final Settlement with regard to Germany was signed in Moscow, which contained decisions on the entire range of issues of German unification. In accordance with the decision of the People's Chamber, the GDR joined the FRG on October 3, 1990.

Ludwig 2. Biography

The material is taken from the site www.opera-news.ru "I want to remain an eternal mystery for myself and for others," Ludwig once said to his governess. The poet Paul Verlaine called Ludwig II the only real king of this century. The prince did not have a carefree childhood. He and his brother Otto, 2 years his junior, had to get used to royal duties with early years. They were not allowed to communicate with other children, and contact with parents was kept to a minimum, as it was believed, this fosters independence. The princes spent most of their childhood away from the capital in Hohenschwangau. Here the prince grew up under the influence of the romantic landscape, architecture, German fairy tales and sagas. The prince was especially interested in the theater, opera librettos and literature.
When Ludwig was 16 years old, an event occurred in his life that largely determined his fate - on February 2, 1861, he attended the performance of Wagner's opera Lohengrin. Wagner's music shocked him. He saw in her the embodiment of his romantic dreams. From that time on, he became a passionate admirer of Wagner and a collector of his works.
When he became king, the first thing he ordered was to find and bring Wagner to him in Munich. Their meeting took place on May 4, 1864, and had far-reaching consequences for both. In the evening of the same day, Wagner wrote to his friend, Dr. Ville: “Unfortunately, he (the king) is so brilliant, so noble, so emotional and amazing that I fear that his life might be lost like a stream in the sand, in this cruel world. I'm so lucky that I'm just crushed; if only he lived ... "Ludwig made him his protégé, built him a luxurious house and took on all material concerns. From now on, Wagner could fully engage in creativity, without being distracted by getting his daily bread. But Wagner, alas, turned out to be a prophet...
The king created a music school in Munich and decided to build a new opera house, equipped in accordance with the requirements of Wagner operas. He saw Munich as the musical capital of Germany, something like the German Vienna. But then the king's plans ran into opposition from the government, his own relatives and the inhabitants of Munich.
For a year and a half, Ludwig bravely resisted the indignation of parliament and the masses. In the end, the king was forced to give in and ask Wagner to leave Munich, which cost him untold moral anguish. It was then that the mutual alienation of the king and parliament began, which deepened over the years and led to disaster. Ludwig hated Munich so much that he wanted to move the capital to Nuremberg.
The king could not be married in any way: he stubbornly avoided the bonds of Hymen and was not seen in adultery. His engagement to his cousin, Princess Sofia, was called off after 8 months without explanation. It became obvious to the royal relatives that they could not wait for the heir to the throne.
In 1866, a war with Prussia was ripe, which Ludwig, a purely peaceful person, tried his best to avoid. He was even ready to give up the throne in the name of this. Not trusting his government, he secretly left Munich and, without telling anyone, went to Wagner in Switzerland for advice. What was the advice can be judged by the fact that two days later the king returned, refused to abdicate and announced a mobilization. In this war, which lasted only three weeks, Bavaria was utterly defeated by the Prussian army, suffered heavy losses and had to pay reparations to Prussia in the amount of 154 million marks. Against the background of this national catastrophe, Ludwig began to realize the romantic dream of his life - the construction of castles in the Bavarian Alps.
In total, three of them were built during his life, but only one turned out to be completed - in Linderhof.
In 1869, Ludwig laid the first stone on the site of an ancient fortress on the slopes of the Alps. Neuschwanstein Castle was built in the form of a medieval castle with a fortress wall, towers and passages. Its construction took 17 years, but was never completed. By an evil twist of fate, in this romantic castle, Ludwig II experienced the greatest humiliation of his life.
His favorite castle was Linderhof - a real little Versailles. Ludwig took Louis XIV as a model of his life and followed him in everything. Even the bedroom at Linderhof, like the bedroom of the "sun king", was located and arranged so that the sun never set in the windows. The defiant luxury of rococo amazes even seasoned tourists. An abundance of gold, mirrors, vases, of which Ludwig was a great connoisseur and collector; life-size peacocks made of precious Meissen porcelain, an ivory chandelier, a bouquet of porcelain flowers indistinguishable from real ones; a huge crystal chandelier with 108 candles, never lit for fear of fire, a lifting table from the kitchen to the dining room - all this testified not only to unlimited funds, but also to the refined taste of their owner. A white piano covered with gold ornaments was commissioned especially for Wagner, but the composer never touched its keys. All the excess, pretentious luxury of Lindenhof was designed for one single person - Richard Wagner, but he never visited Lindenhof. The king spent his days in complete solitude, with the exception of a few servants, listening to Wagner's music performed by first-class orchestras and opera groups in a grotto theater specially carved into the rock, or riding a boat on an artificial lake nearby. He more and more departed from state affairs, plunging into the ideal romantic world created for himself.
Meanwhile, in 1870, a second war broke out, which Ludwig wanted to avoid just as passionately as the first, and was just as compelled to take part in it. Bavaria, under the terms of the peace treaty, was to fight against France on the side of Prussia. This war ended with the defeat of France. The Prussian king Wilhelm I was declared emperor of the united German Empire. The entire German aristocracy was present at this solemn event in the Mirror Hall of the Palace of Versailles. Only the King of Bavaria was missing. Rampant construction and the funds spent on it did not contribute to the popularity of the once adored monarch. He poured his own annual income of 5.5 million marks into his projects and dug deep into the public pocket. By the time of Ludwig's death, his debt to the state was 21 million marks. The wealth of the country, acquired over 800 years by many generations of Bavarian monarchs, was wasted in just 20 years.
As a result of a successful conspiracy led by Prime Minister Lutz, the king was declared incompetent. His uncle, the Bavarian Prince Lutpold, was declared ruler. Lutz was interested in isolating the king because, as head of government, he was aware of the exorbitant expenses, but kept them secret from the king, who was poorly versed in economics. The court physician von Gudden saw Ludwig into exile at Berg Castle near Lake Starnberg. He also informed him of the decision of a council of four physicians on the need for isolation and treatment.
- How can you declare me mentally ill if you never examined me? Ludwig asked. To which the court physician replied:
“Your Majesty, this is not necessary. We have information that gives us enough evidence.
On June 13, 1886, at six o'clock in the evening, Ludwig and his doctor Gudden went for a short walk in the park without bodyguards - at the last minute, the doctor refused their services. A few hours later, their bodies were found in the lake. Was it murder or suicide, the investigation has not established. Both were in frock coats, hats and umbrellas, which ruled out the intention to swim. Ludwig was an excellent swimmer, which made the version of an accident unlikely. The autopsy also did not shed light on the reasons for the death of the king. It was beneficial for official sources to support the version of madness and suicide. After Ludwig's death, the rule passed to his mentally handicapped brother Otto under the guardianship of his uncle Liutpold.
After the reign of Ludwig, in addition to his palaces, there remained the Academy of Fine Arts and the Institute of Technology in Munich, the Bavarian Red Cross. From the funds he created, the development of musical culture was supported, which led to the construction of the Palais des Festivals in Bayreuth.

Füssen

The area where Füssen is located was shaped by various ice ages, mainly under the influence of the Lech glacier. Numerous moraine hills and most of the lakes are a legacy of this period.
People began to settle in these places from the end of the Paleolithic. At first these were the tribes of the Celts, who were Romanized ca. 15 BC during the campaigns of the stepsons of August - Tiberius and Drus. The area became part of the Roman province of Raetia, which during the reign of Emperor Diocletian (284-305 AD) was divided into Raetia 1 (capital Chur) and Raetia 2 (with Augsburg as capital). To connect the new territories, the Roman emperor Claudius (41-54 AD) built the military road of Claudius Augustus, which began in Altinum (now a place near Venice) and at the river. By and reached the Danube through Füssen and Augsburg. At the end of the 3rd c. on the hill where the palace is located, a Roman camp was set up to protect against the attacks of the Germanic tribes, which began at the beginning of the century. In the 4th century the territory was inhabited by Germanic tribes, first under the rule of the Ostrogoths, then - the Franks.
There are different versions about the origin of the name Füssen. This word first appeared on a Roman tombstone of the 4th century BC. (fotensium) And at the beginning of the 5th c. appeared in the official papers of the Romans (in the form of foetibus). It is not clear whether this word appeared in pre-Roman times and was Latinized, or whether it was originally a Latin word meaning "a place near a gorge" (the mouth of the Lech in the rocks was called Lusaltenfelsen). On the other hand, it could be a Roman military term: "praepositus Fotensium" - the commander of Fussen's troops. The monks of St. Mungo called the place of their monastery "ad fauces" (near the gorge) and in 1175 the German word Fozen was recorded.
By the time the settlement received city status, it was called Fuezzen, and this name was associated with the word for feet (fuesse), so the city's coat of arms shows three legs. Seals with a coat of arms appeared from 1317. Three legs are associated with three sources of power to which the city is subject: the prince-archbishop of Augsburg (or the duchy of Swabia), the county of Tyrol and the duchy of Bavaria).
St. Magnus was born c. 700 He worked in the area not so much as a missionary, but rather as a teacher ordinary people helped them. In 750 or 772 he died and the monastery of St. Mungo was later built on his grave.
In the 12th century the city was first under the rule of the Guelphs, then the Duke of Bavaria built a palace here in 1298, thus trying to establish his power. But the archbishops of Augsburg have had power over Füssen since ancient times. In the 13th century Füssen gained independence and was governed by its own municipal laws, although it was under the authority of an archbishop until secularization in 1802, when it came under the rule of Bavaria.
Since the time of the Romans and the construction of the road, Füssen has become an important trading center, goods came from the south and north, and were rafted down the Lech.
In the 16th century The first European luten and violin maker's guild was founded. Violin makers from Füssen spread throughout Europe, especially many of them settled in Vienna, thanks to which Vienna became the largest city for the manufacture of musical instruments, along with Paris and London. From the 16th century the tradition of making organs also develops. Füssen now has two tool workshops that supply products to the international market.
After the wars of the 16th-18th centuries. Fussen has lost its significance. Only in the 19th century with the construction of a textile factory, and then with the development of alpine tourism, the city's economy began to recover.
In 1995 Fussen celebrated its 700th anniversary.
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Neuschwanstein

Construction began in 1869 by order of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, known as the "Mad King Ludwig". The castle stands on the site of two fortresses - front and rear Schwangau. The king ordered at this place to lower the plateau by about 8 meters by blasting the rock and thereby create a place for construction.
The castle was conceived as a giant stage where the world of German mythology comes to life, especially the image of the legendary swan knight Lohengrin from Wagner's opera of the same name (see libretto). The name of the castle in German means "new swan stone".
The castle was not built as quickly as the king wanted. The gate building was built first and Ludwig lived here for several years. He moved to the palace in 1884. Moving more and more away from society, Ludwig changed the purpose of the rooms. The guest rooms were replaced in the plan by a Moorish Hall with a fountain, but this was never built. The office in 1880 was turned into a small grotto. The audience room turned into a huge Throne Room. It was no longer intended for audiences, but embodied royal majesty and was a copy of the legendary Grail Hall.
The medieval appearance of the castle hides the most modern technical innovations at that time: the castle was heated with central heating, there is water on each floor, hot and cold water in the kitchen, toilets have an automatic cleaning system, servants were called by an electric bell system. There were even telephones on the third and fourth floors. The food did not go up the stairs, but in the elevator. One of the innovations is large windows. Windows of this size were still uncommon in Ludwig's time.
The construction of the castle was not completed during the life of the king. Shortly after his mystical death in 1886, the castle and its magnificent interior were opened to the general public. It took 17 years to complete its construction.
At the end of the Second World War, the gold reserves of the German Reich were kept in the castle, but in the last days of the war it was taken to an unknown destination.

Castle halls

The walls of the halls are painted according to the plots of medieval legends and Wagner's operas. The main characters are kings, knights, poets and lovers. The main figures are the poet Tannhäuser (Singing Hall) (see the plot of Wagner's opera "Tannhäuser"), the swan knight Lohengrin (see the plot of Wagner's opera "Lohengrin") and his father, the Grail King Parsifal (see the plot of Wagner's opera "Parzival") .
The royal staircase made of Salzburg marble, above which a stylized dragon and hunting scenes are depicted, leads to the passage to the royal chambers on the 4th floor. On the vault are the coats of arms of Schwangau, Bavaria and Wittelsbach.
Since the castle was built in the style of a medieval fortress, and in the 12th century. there were no glass windows, the king wanted to give the impression of open window arches. Therefore, the glass of the vaults, as well as the glass between the columns, was built directly into the stone wall.
Next to the door leading to the front staircase are oak doors leading to the servants' staircase. At the time of the presence of the king, the servants had no right to use the main staircase.
The servants lived on the first upper floor. Five servants' rooms are being shown today. They have simple oak furniture. Two people slept in each room. When the king was absent, 10-15 people lived in the castle, looking after him. When he returned, the number of workers more than doubled.
The main staircase leads to the hall on the third floor. To the west of it is the Throne Room, to the east are the royal apartments. The paintings on the walls depict scenes from the legend of Sigurd, based on the Elder Edda. It served as the basis for the legend of Siegfried from the medieval German Nibelungenlied, which formed the basis of Wagner's cycle of operas Ring of the Nibelungen. The treasures of the Nibelungen are cursed. Sigurd killed the dragon and took possession of the treasure, but a curse fell on him and he was killed. The wall paintings in the hall show scenes from the prediction of Sigurd's fate to his death. The fate of Sigurd's wife Gudrun is shown in the next tier in the hall.
Throne room reminiscent of a Byzantine basilica. Ludwig wanted it to be similar to the Cathedral of All Saints in Munich and St. Sophia in Constantinople. The throne, which was supposed to stand in the place of the altar, was never built. Ludwig 2 had his own ideas about the role of the king and the monarchy, which are vividly illustrated in the Throne Room with paintings: the throne is the source of law, royal power is given by the grace of God.
The wall paintings depict Christ in glory with Mary and St. John, surrounded by angels, and below - 6 canonized kings, among which is Saint Louis 9 of France, the patron of the king. On the opposite wall - St. Archangel Michael (above) and St. George, patron of the Bavarian order of knights. Ludwig did not want state receptions to be held in the Throne Room. He considered this hall the holy of holies, the place of embodiment of his fantasies. The mosaic floor is especially beautiful in this hall. A celestial globe depicting animals and plants is visible on the surface. Above it is a heavenly dome, the sun and stars, and between heaven and earth, the symbol of the royal crown is a huge chandelier, emphasizing the mediating role of the king between God and people. The chandelier is made of gilded copper, decorated with glass stones and 96 candles. With the help of a special spiral, the chandelier (weighing 900 kg) can be lowered to the floor.
On canvases Canteen scenes of the legendary competitions of minnesinger singers (which became the basis of Wagner's opera "Tannhäuser") are depicted. All the paintings of the royal chambers are painted on coarse linen, so they give the impression of tapestries. This was also done at the request of the king, as tapestries were expensive and took a long time to make. Food in the dining room was lifted with the help of a lift.
Bedroom king is designed in neo-gothic style, with luxurious oak carvings. The wall paintings show scenes from the saga of Tristan and Iseult. It was in this room that on June 12, 1886, the king was announced that he was recognized as mentally ill and incompetent. The next day he died.
Next room - court chapel. It is also designed in neo-gothic style.
Next is the royal hall, living room king. It consists of a large salon and a so-called swan corner separated by columns. The theme of the wall paintings is the saga of Lohengrin. In the bay window there is a large swan-shaped vase made of Nympheburg majolica.
Between the living room and the office was created artificial grotto in a romantic style. The walls are made of simple materials such as tow and gypsum, there is an artificial waterfall, and a passage on the right leads to the winter garden.
Study king is designed in the Romanesque style. As in the living room, there is carved oak, gilded copper lamps. The walls are decorated with paintings on the theme of the Tannhäuser saga. Then the group is taken to the adjutant room and to the 5th floor - to Singing Hall. Numerous wall paintings illustrate scenes from the legend of Parzival (see the legend of Parzival). The painting, which serves as a backdrop for the stage - a singing gazebo, depicts the garden of the wizard Klingsor and is designed to create the most reliable illusion that the listener sees a real garden in front of him. Concerts are held in the Singing Hall every year in September.
The tour ends at the landing of the stairs, which only the king could walk on.
Palace kitchen, which has been completely preserved since the time of the king, visitors inspect on their own. The kitchen was equipped with the latest innovations of the time: it has a built-in installation with hot and cold water, automatic skewers for roasts. Furnace heat served at the same time to heat dishes.
journey // photo

Hohenschwangau

At the core is the Schwanstein Fortress. It was built in the 12th century. and immediately became a meeting place for minnesinger singers. The knights of Schwangau received these lands in fief possession from the Welfs, then they were subordinate to the Hohenstaufens. Hitpold von Schwangau, one of the first known knights of this name, went down in history as a well-known minnesinger and was immortalized in the Heidelberg Songbook and the Manes Manuscript.
In the 16th century the family of the knights of Schwangau died out, the fortress began to gradually fall apart. In 1538-41. it was reconstructed by the Italian architect Licio de Spari for the then owner of the Augsburg aristocrat Paumgarten. The building was the main seat of the government of Schwangau.
After several owners changed, the castle in the form of ruins was bought by Crown Prince Maximilian of Bavaria, the future king Maximilian 2 and father of Ludwig 2. Restoration began in 1833. King Maximilian 2 used the castle as a summer residence. Ludwig 2 lived here as a child and later also spent a lot of time, and here he received Wagner.
The lack of interiors of the castle is made up for by countless murals that tell about the deeds of prominent personalities from German legends and history, as well as about the generations of the Wittelsbach family: about the swan knight Lohengrin (the swan was the heraldic animal of the knights of Schwangau), about the life of the Wittelsbach family, Hohenstaufen (to which Friedrich belonged Barbarossa), the kind of knights of Schwangau, Charlemagne, etc.
The castle has been open to the public as a museum since 1913. During the Second World War, the castle was not damaged, today it still belongs to the members of the royal house of Bavaria, the Wittelsbach family.
about sights briefly / photo

Linderhof

The first plan of Linderhof was made by Ludwig in 1868. The new building was erected on the basis of a forest house belonging to Ludwig's father Maximilian 2. The palace turned out to be the only completed of all Ludwig's projects, and he spent a lot of time here alone.
In 1869, Ludwig began the reconstruction of the forest house, calling it the Royal Cottage. In 1870, under the supervision of the palace builder Georg Dollmann, a wing was added, and the original plan was changed: a second wing was added to balance the first, and a bedroom to link the two wings. In 1873 the final design of the palace was made. The original wooden structure was replaced with stone and covered with a new roof. In 1874 the cottage was moved 200 meters to where it is now. Now appearance The façade took on its current form. By 1876, the creation of the interiors of the palace was completed. In 1874 the plans for the park were completed.

Palace halls

The tour starts at lobby, they give out brochures with text in different languages ​​if the visitor does not understand English or German. In the center of the room is a bronze statue french king Louis 14, whom Ludwig 2 admired and which was for him a symbol of absolute royal power. From the vestibule a staircase leads to the living rooms.
AT Western Tapestry Room, otherwise called Musical, is striking in the multicolored wall paintings and seating furniture. The paintings, reminiscent of tapestries, depict scenes from social and shepherd life in the Rococo style. Next to the ornate musical instrument- a combination of piano and harmonium, typical of the 19th century - stands a life-sized peacock made of painted Sèvres porcelain. A similar peacock stands in the oriental tapestry room. This bird is considered, like the swan, the favorite animal of the king.
Through the yellow office, which overlooks the western terraces, visitors enter the reception area. This room was originally supposed to be the throne room. In precious wall cladding audience rooms two marble fireplaces with equestrian figurines of kings Louis XV and Louis XVI are inscribed. Between the fireplaces is the king's desk with a gilded writing set. Above the work table is a canopy, embroidered with gold thread. Round malachite tables - a gift from the Russian Empress.
Royal bedroom- this is the central and most spacious room of the castle, illuminated by 108 candles of a crystal candelabra. Marble sculptures, stucco and ceiling paintings pay tribute to the heroes of ancient mythology.
pink cabinet- This is the dressing room of the king, one of the four small rooms that connect the main rooms. She leads to the dining room.
Aged in vibrant red dining room has an oval shape. In the middle of the room is a retractable table adorned with a Meissen porcelain vase. It was served in the lower rooms and raised to the king, so that even the presence of the servants did not bother him.
AT oriental tapestry room dominated by motives of Greek mythology. It leads to the Hall of Mirrors.
Fabulous mirror hall was created in 1874. Mirror cabinets are typical of German palaces of the 18th century, but in Linderhof this found its highest embodiment. Huge mirrors, white and gilded panels between the mirrors create endless rows of rooms.

Park and park pavilions

The park occupies 80 hectares and includes Renaissance-style terraces, strict baroque parterres and a landscape English park, gradually turning into forest and mountains.
Directly behind the palace is a flower bed with the image of a Bourbon lily. The creators of the park successfully used natural conditions, the fact that the castle stands at the foot of steep slopes. Along the cascade, ending at the palace with a fountain with the figure of Neptune, linden pergolas go up, stone figures symbolize the four continents. Upstairs - a gazebo, from there a beautiful view of the palace, the cascade, terraces and the temple of Venus on a hill on the other side of the palace.
To the right and left of the palace are the eastern and western parterres, respectively. Eastern parterre- This is a three-tiered garden in the style of French regular gardens with ornamented flower beds and figures allegorically depicting the 4 elements: fire, water, earth and air. In the center - a stone sculpture of Venus and Adonis, a fountain with a gilded figure of Cupid with an arrow and a stone bust of King Louis 16 of France. Western parterre was the first palace garden. In the center - flower beds with two fountains with gilded figures of the goddess of glory Fama and Cupid. Along the perimeter are the symbolic figures of the four seasons.
In front of the palace - a geometric garden surrounded by a hornbeam hedge, in the center - fountain(22 m) with a gilded group "Flora and putti", which is switched on for 5 minutes every half hour. Nearby is a huge linden tree (about 300 years old), which originally gave the name to the farm located here, and then to the palace. Three Italian-style terraces rise up the Linderbichl hill. terraced gardens decorated with 2 lions and a Naiad fountain. In the center of the terrace is a complex of niche grottoes with a bust of Queen Marie Antoinette of France. The terraces end with a platform with a round Greek temple with the figure of Venus. Initially, a theater was planned on this site.
All other pavilions are located along the perimeter of the arc, in the center of which is the palace.
Closest to park entrance Moroccan pavilion. It was purchased at the world exhibition in Paris in 1878, the interior was changed at the request of Ludwig. The house originally stood outside Linderhof near the German-Austrian border, not far from the hunting lodge. After the death of Ludwig, it was bought by a private person and returned back, now to the park, only in 1982.
The next building on the way to the palace is royal loggia. The construction dates back to 1790. It was already used by Maximilian as a hunting lodge. Ludwig often lived here until the palace was completed, and after the king's death it was often used by Prince Regent Luitpold.
To the right of the palace Chapel of St. Anne. The oldest building in the Linderhof complex, built in 1684 by the abbot of Ettal. The interiors were changed under the direction of Ludwig 2.
Farthest from the palace, at the exit (closed to visitors) leading to Ettal and Oberammergau, is hunting lodge. It was built in 1876 and was located in the Ammertal valleys, burned down already in 1884 and immediately restored. It burned down again in 1945 and was rebuilt in 1990 at Linderhof. The interior of the house serves as a scenery for Wagner's opera "Valkyrie". In the center is an ash tree, a symbol of the World Tree of Scandinavian myths.
Perhaps the most interesting Moorish Pavilion. Ludwig was particularly interested in oriental architecture, and by the time he purchased the Moorish Pavilion he had already built the Indian Pavilion at his Munich residence. The Mauritanian pavilion was built in 1867 in Prussia for the World Exhibition in Paris. In the twilight light of colored glass windows and colored lamps, the splendor of an exotic interior is revealed. In the curvature of the apse, a peacock throne made for the king in 1877 in Paris was installed: three peacocks are made of bright enameled cast metal, and the tails are made of polished Bohemian glass. The decor is complemented by a Moorish fountain, stylized lamps, smoking tables and coffee tables.
Grotto of Venus was built in 1877. The cave with a lake and a waterfall was created to represent the first act of Wagner's opera Tannhäuser. Electricity was provided for lighting. Stone doors were opened with a special hidden switch.

Economic conditions. AT economic development Germany lagged behind such countries as England, Holland and France. From the second half of the 16th century, economic decline began in Germany. This happened, first of all, due to the fragmentation of Germany into small principalities (states), of which there were more than three hundred. Political fragmentation prevented the emergence of a single internal market. In addition, the main sea trade routes moved to the Atlantic Ocean, and the international trade routes that ran through Germany lost their significance. But before mid-sixteenth century relations of the East with the markets Western Europe, through the mediation of Northern Italy, were established only through the territory of Germany. The economic role of Germany on a global scale was determined by its superiority in the world in the production of copper. Copper in trade was considered the main tool. However, gold and silver, imported on a large scale from America to Europe, caused great damage to its significance. In addition, German manufactured products could not compete with foreign goods, because manufacturing in Germany was limited to the city. It did not spread in rural areas, where subsistence farming and natural relations dominated, and mercantilism flourished - each prince could issue a decree protecting his agricultural or handicraft production.

The Great Peasant War of 1524-1526, in which the peasants were defeated, contributed to the preservation of medieval feudal relations. However, the peasants did not rebel for the elimination of the feudal order, but only for the softening of these orders, the provision of personal freedom to the peasants.

The defeat of the peasants also contributed to the preservation of political fragmentation. And finally, the loss of Germany in the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) forced her to finally wallow in the swamp of backwardness. The Thirty Years' War divided Europe into two blocs: the first bloc was the union of Austria, Spain, and the German Catholic principalities; the second block is the union of France, Denmark, Sweden and the German Protestant principalities. There was a war going on between these two blocs. The war ended with the signing of a peace treaty in Westphalia. In this war, the second allied bloc won. As a result, political hegemony in Europe passed to France. Sweden has become one of the great European powers, having won the right to dominate the Baltic coast.

Holland was declared an independent republic.

Germany, as a result of this war, came to an economic and political decline, which further increased the political fragmentation of the country.

Political system. Germany was considered an empire, it was formally ruled by an emperor. But its unity was recorded only on paper. "This country, called until 1806 the 'Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation', was not really sacred, and did not unite the German nation. It was, rather, an 'empire' without subjects, an empire without power."

The Habsburg emperor, apart from his Austrian possessions, had no real power anywhere else. The empire did not have public institutions. The Reichstag of the German Empire did not make final decisions binding on

All principalities. And even if they did, they did not have the force of law. The emperor lived in Vienna (now the capital of Austria), the Reichstag was in another city, the Supreme Court was in a third. In this situation, each prince strove for independence not only in domestic policy, but also in foreign policy.

Germany's international position. In the second half of the 17th century, the internal political fragmentation of Germany turned it into a puppet in the hands of the great states of Europe. In relation to Germany during this period, Sweden, France and Turkey were hostile. As a result, France took possession of Strasbourg and the lands on the left bank of the Rhine. In 1683, the German principalities, for the first time in their history, made a unanimous decision to oppose the attacking Turkey and created a national liberation army. That year, Turkish troops were defeated on the outskirts of Vienna. The German victory saved Central Europe from a Turkish attack.

Formation of the Kingdom of Prussia. Among the German principalities, Austria and Brandenburg were the strongest. In the 17th and 18th centuries, these two states fought among themselves for hegemony in Germany. Austria was ruled by the Habsburg dynasty, Brandenburg by the Hohenzollern dynasty. The capital of Austria was Vienna, the capital of Brandenburg was Berlin. In the 17th century, the Duchy of Prussia began to occupy a leading position in the Principality of Brandenburg. In 1701, the Kingdom of Prussia was formed on the site of the Principality of Brandenburg. The Brandenburg prince Frederick III was declared the King of Prussia under the name Frederick 1. Starting from that moment, Prussia, taking advantage of the international situation and the weakness of the German principalities, began to turn into a powerful state. She managed to create a powerful army.

At the end of the 18th century, Prussia ranked third in Europe in territorial terms, and fourth in terms of the number of troops. During the reign of Frederick II (1740-1786), Prussia turned into an absolutist monarchy. Subsequently, Prussia managed to unite Germany into a single state. You will learn more about this in the next lesson.

The peculiarity of the Russian economy XVII century. In the 17th century, new phenomena began to appear in the Russian economy. This was manifested in the development of goods produced for the market. Urban handicrafts began to turn into small-scale production, manufactories appeared for the production of tools necessary for the needs of the country. Now master artisans worked not by order, but for the market. At the same time, they themselves began to buy raw materials on the market. This process has not bypassed agriculture. Grain, vital for everyone, began to turn into a commodity. Some landlords (feudal lords) began to sell agricultural products. Now quitrent was collected from the serfs not only in the form of products, but also in the form of money. All these factors began to undermine the foundations of subsistence farming.

The Reichstag is a parliament, a representative body established under the emperor of Germany in the 12th century.

Germany is a state in Central Europe, which got its name from the Romans after the people who lived in it. In the VIII century, it became part of the empire of Charlemagne, in 843 it separated from it into a separate kingdom. In the middle of the 9th century, the kings of Germany became emperors Holy Roman Empire , and this designation of Germany lasted until the start XIX century. With XIII century, the fragmentation of Germany into separate principalities began, which was especially intensified due to the Thirty Years' War XVII century. AT XVIII century Germany consisted of 350 principalities and free cities. In the second half of the 19th century, it was united by Bismarck, since 1871 - an empire.

Essay on the history of the XVI - XVII centuries

Germany (German: Deutschland) is a state in the Center. Europe. Beginning 16th century was marked in G. by the strengthening of the reformers. movements in the church. life: Martin Luther published (1517) his 95 theses, and in 1519 entered into an open struggle with Rome. In 1519, the grandson of the emperor was elected to the throne. Maximilian I Charles V of Spain (1519-1556), on whom G. had high hopes. However, he found himself at the center of events completely alien to Germany. In 1531, hoping for support in the fight against France, Charles decided to rely on Roman Catholicism. Church and at the Diet of Worms laid disgrace on Luther. Immediately after this, the war with France began. During it, Charles lost German-Austrian. the possessions of G. to his brother Ferdinand, and the management of G. handed over to the imp. pr-va, which did not prevent the spread of the new doctrine. However, the attempts of petty chivalry and the peasantry to take advantage of reform activities Luther, for their own purposes, did not justify their hopes of changing their plight. At the Diet in Speyer (1529), the Catholics succeeded in canceling a large number of concessions to the reformers. Supporters of church reforms protested against this decision, after which they began to be called Protestants. Charles, in alliance with Rome, decided to deal with the Protestants, but at the Diet in Augsburg (1530) it turned out that the emperor did not have the necessary forces for this. In addition, relations with France and the Turks did not contribute to Karl's undertaking, and he resigned himself. Moreover, when the Protestants formed the Schmalkaldic League and protested together with Bavaria against the election of Ferdinand to Rome. kings, after which they began to draw closer to France, Hungary and Denmark, Karl was forced (1532) to go to religion in Nuremberg. a peace that guaranteed freedom of religion for Protestants until the next council. Busy French. and tour. campaigns, Charles no longer had the opportunity to influence the course of events in Georgia, where Protestantism was rapidly gaining strength and even helped the emperor conclude a profitable peace with France after the victory at Crepi. After that, however, Charles made an agreement with Rome to eradicate Protestantism in Georgia, which again turned the whole of Greece against him. His own project for the transformation of the church forced not only Rome, but also allies inside the country to turn away from him. Meanwhile, France took away 3 Lorraine from him. duchies, which prompted Charles to transfer control of the country to his brother, who in 1555 concluded the so-called. Augsburg Relig. world. During the reign of Ferdinand I (1555-1564), the Turks captured most of Hungary, France continued to hold the Germans. territories; trade was dealt a severe blow in connection with the discovery and the beginning of the development of America; German the Hanseatic cities lost the championship to Scand. cities; The Netherlands were first captured by Spain, and then completely independent; Balt. provinces fell under the glory. influence. His son, Maximilian II (1564-1576), who succeeded him, tried to maintain peace between the warring parties, which only contributed to the strengthening of the internal. strife and the spread of Protestantism in Bohemia and Austria. Entered the imp. the throne, the son of Maximilian Rudolph II (1576-1612), who was under the influence of the Jesuits, decided to put an end to the Reformation with one blow and created an alliance of Catholics. princes in order to fight the Protestants. Those, in turn, united in a union and successfully resisted the efforts of the emperor, and only death saved him from the loss of all his crowns. His brother and successor, Matthew (1612-1619), who was still in opposition to the emperor, proved unable to curb the mutual bitterness of the parties or gain influence even on one of them. The violation of the “letter of majesty” caused a revolution in Bohemia (in the spring of 1618), which served as an external. cause for the 30 Years' War. Shortly thereafter, Matthew died, leaving as his successor in the hereditary lands a friend of the Jesuits - Ferdinand of Styria. Ferdinand II (1619-1637), whom the Czechs recognized as deposed from the throne, managed, however, in the most difficult circumstances, not only to establish himself in Austria, but also to become German. emperor. Supported Catholic. league, he pacified the uprising of the Czechs, defeated the cor. Frederick (Elector of the Palatinate) and achieved the disintegration of the Protestants. union. Following this, both in Bohemia and Austria, as well as in many other parts of Germany, the merciless eradication of the Reformation began, which gave the foreign. goswam - first of Denmark (1625- 1629), and then of Sweden and France - an occasion for intervention in it. affairs. Ferdinand II, meanwhile, was able to throw off his dependence on the league and, with the help of Wallenstein, create independent empires. military force. However, he had the imprudence to dismiss Wallenstein at the very moment when, on the one hand, he quarreled with the leaders of the league, and on the other hand, he issued an extremely untimely restoration edict (1629), which aroused the deep hatred of the Protestants. It helped the Swede. box Gustav II Adolf to support the perishing Protestantism and at the same time to approve the Swede. dominance in Germany coast of the Baltic Sea. With great difficulty, Gustav-Adolf made his way to Saxony, defeated the supporters of the league at Breitenfeld (1631), victoriously marched to the Rhine, Swabia and Bavaria, and defeated imp. troops under the command of the newly appointed Wallenstein. Death of a Swede The king was saved by the Habsburgs. After the victory at Nordlingen (1634), the emperor succeeded, according to the Prague Peace Treaty (1635), to win over at least part of the Protestants; but, until the foundations of the "restorative edict" were finally eliminated, foreign. it was easy for the powers to continue the war. Indeed, the war continued to rage after the death of Ferdinand, under his son Ferdinand III (1637-1667). Means. part of Germany was completely ruined; the most flourishing areas on the Rhine, Main and Neckar turned into deserts. Finally, the peace congress that opened in Münster and Osnabrück ended after years of negotiations with the Peace of Westphalia (1648). Protestants were given a religion. equality, the exiled princes were restored in their rights. However, this peace was achieved at the cost of full political. atrophy of the empire. The mediating powers, Sweden and France, received a generous reward from him. lands, and germ. sovereign princes acquired the rights of independence. sovereigns. With the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia, the authority of the imp. power existed only nominally; the empire turned into a union of states, barely connected with each other. At the permanent Diet in Regensburg, which opened in 1663, German. the sovereigns participated no longer personally, but through their representatives. Meetings were conducted with such pedantic painstakingness that the Diet was completely useless for the urgent needs of the nation. The emperor lived almost without a break in his hereditary lands and became more and more a foreign element in the empire; in parallel with this, the influence of foreign powers. The very education and spiritual development of the people became dependent on foreigners, primarily the French. The empire, constrained on all sides by the Turks, French and Swedes, played a completely passive role in the events that soon followed. Many Zap.-German. the sovereigns directly took the side of France, so that after the death of Ferdinand III it was very difficult to elect his son Leopold I (1658-1705) as emperor. Even the aggressive policy of the French. box Louis XIV could not inspire him. people to a united resistance. At first, only the leader stood up for the interests of G.. the elector of Brandenburg and under Ferbelin (1675) inflicted a sensitive defeat on the allies of France, the Swedes. When, finally, the emperor and the empire decided to take part in the war, then the rivalry of individual him. state-in at every turn interfered with the success of military operations. Needing troops against the Hungarians. rebels and Turks, the emperor accepted the Peace of Nimvegen (1678) and forced Friedrich Wilhelm to return the Balts conquered from them to the Swedes. provinces. Taking advantage of the complete lack of unity, Louis XIV, with the help of his "attaching chambers" (Chambres de Reunion), weakened the empire in the West and annexed Strasbourg to France (1681). Finally, his claims to the Palatinate inheritance forced him to. state-wa to stick to a new coalition against France. According to the Peace of Ryswick (1697), however, Georgia did not get back the provinces taken from her. Louis returned only Freiburg and Breisach. War for Spain inheritance again took place mainly on the territory. G., sev. and east. the border lands of the swarm at the same time were devastated as a result of the Northern War, which Russia waged with Sweden.

Vladimir Boguslavsky

Material from the book: "Slavic Encyclopedia. XVII century". M., OLMA-PRESS. 2004.

Not immediately Germany was built

In 843, as a result of the division of the vast Frankish Empire between the three grandsons of Charlemagne, the territory of modern Germany - the East Frankish kingdom - went to Louis the German. This is how the Germanic, or, as it was later officially called, the Roman kingdom arose. Initially, it consisted of only four duchies: Saxony, Franconia, Swabia and Bavaria. Later, the Duchy of Lorraine was added to them. In 939, King Otto I liquidated the Duchy of Franconia and annexed its lands to the royal domain. Later, as a result of a centuries-old offensive to the east, several more large German possessions were formed on the lands inhabited by Slavs, Lithuanians and Prussians.

In 961, King Otto I of Germany crossed the Alps and defeated the Italian king Berengari II. In 962 he entered Rome and was crowned imperial there by the Pope. The empire, in addition to Germany, included Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic (Bohemia), and from 1032 the Burgundian kingdom of Arelat.

Until 1125, the king of Germany, if the throne remained vacant, was elected at a congress of spiritual and secular nobility. But then the election procedure was changed - from that time on, the electors received the right to choose the king (the elector is a prince, spiritual or secular, who has the right to vote in the election of the king). The right to vote was granted not to a certain prince or dynasty, but to the territory - the subject of the empire. Initially, there were seven Electors: the Archbishops of Mainz, Trier, Cologne, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the Palatine Count of the Rhine (Palatinate), the King of Bohemia. In 1692, the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg received the electoral dignity of Hanover. In 1723, instead of the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Bavaria became elector. In 1803, the Imperial Diet redrawn the map of Germany. The spiritual electors were deprived of the right to choose a king, and instead of them, the rulers of Baden, Württemberg, Hesse-Kassel, Salzburg (in 1805, instead of Salzburg - Würzburg) and Regensburg, the ruler of which became the Archchancellor of the Empire, Archbishop of Mainz Karl Theodor von Dahlberg, presiding over the Diet, became electors. Elected to the throne received the title of King of Germany (officially - King of Rome). However, in order to receive the imperial crown, he had to be crowned in Rome by the Pope. And this was not always possible to do, since the relationship of many kings of Germany with the Popes was often not the best. Therefore, the list of kings of Germany (Roman) does not quite coincide with the list of emperors of the Holy Roman Empire.

Germanic (Roman) kingdom

Suppression of the Carolingian dynasty in Germany. At the congress of princes, the majority was ready to elect the Duke of Saxony Otto as king, but he, citing old age, renounced the throne and advised to elect the Duke of Franconian Conrad, which was done.

Conrad I of Franconia 911-918

Conrad III 1138-1152

Frederick I Barbarossa 1152-1190

Ludwig IV Wittelsbach 1314-1347

Dynasty Luxembourgish, 1347-1437

Luxembourg since 1310 were the kings of the Czech Republic. About the Luxembourg dynasty - in the chapter "Benelux".

Charles IV 1347-1378

Wenceslas 1378-1400

Ruprecht of the Palatinate 1400-1410

Sigismund 1410-1437

After the death of Sigismund, there were no male heirs. His son-in-law Albrecht Habsburg was elected king, who, during the life of his father-in-law, was recognized as the king of Hungary and the governor of the Czech Republic.

Dynasty Habsburg, 1438-1806

More about the Habsburg dynasty - in the section "Austria".

Albrecht II 1438-1439

Friedrich III 1440-1486

Maximilian I 1486-1519

Charles V 1519-1531

Ferdinand I 1531-1562

Maximilian II 1562-1575

Rudolf II 1575-1612

Matthias 1612-1619

Ferdinand II 1619-1636

Ferdinand III 1636-1653

Ferdinand IV 1653-1654

Ferdinand III (secondary) 1654-1657

Leopold I 1658-1690

Joseph I 1690-1711

Charles VI 1711-1740

Charles VII of Bavaria 1742-1745

Franz I 1745-1764

Joseph II 1764-1790

Leopold II 1790-1792

Franz II 1792-1806

Napoleon I Bonaparte 1811-1814

Used materials of the book: Sychev N.V. Book of dynasties. M., 2008. p. 192-231.

German states and their rulers:

Holy Roman Empire(this state formation included Germany, and the German kings became its emperors).

Austria, in the 10th century, the Bavarian Eastern Mark arose, which later became a duchy and received the name Austria. Since 976, the Babenberg dynasty, a side branch of the Bavarian Wittelsbachs, has established itself there.

Prussia and Brandenburg, the German state in 1525-1947.

Saxony. The ancient Saxon duchy occupied large areas in the northern part of Germany. This is mainly the modern state of Lower Saxony, but Magdeburg was also included there.

Meissen(margraviate). In 928/29 Emperor Henry I established the Margraviate of Meissen.

Hanover- a historical region in the north-west of Germany.

Bavaria(Duchy of Bavaria) - a medieval kingdom, later a duchy in southwestern Germany, which took its name from the Germanic people of the Bavarians.

Rhenish Palatinate. County Palatinate of the Rhine, since 1356 - Electorate of the Palatinate.

Swabia, duchy 920-1268

Württemberg, before 1495 - county, 1495-1803 - Duchy, 1803-1806 - Electorate, 1806-1918 - kingdom.

Baden, margraviate, from 1803 - electorate, from 1806 - grand duchy.

Hesse, from 1265 Hessian landgraviate, and from 1292 an imperial principality.

Lorraine. As a result of the division of the Frankish Empire between the grandchildren of Charlemagne, Lothar I, in addition to the imperial title, got: Italy, Provence, the Burgundian lands, the border region between France and Germany, later known as Lorraine, the lands of the Frisians. Later, Lothair I divided his possessions between his sons, giving each of them a royal title. He proclaimed Charles the king of Provence, Louis II - the king of Italy, Lothair II - the king of Lorraine.

The word "Germany" comes from the Latin word Germania. So during the Gallic War (58-51), the Romans called people who lived east of the Rhine River. The German name of the country Deutschland comes from a Germanic root, which means "people" or "people".

A Frankish court document (written in Latin in AD 768) uses the term "theodisca lingua" to refer to the spoken language of people who did not speak either Latin or early Romance languages. From this point on, the word "deutsch" was used to emphasize differences in speech that corresponded to political, geographical, and social differences.

Since the Frankish and Saxon kings of the early Middle Ages liked to call themselves emperors of Rome, it was still too early to talk about the birth of their own national identity at that time. By the 15th century, the name Heiliges Römisches Reich, or Holy Roman Empire, was supplemented by the definition of the German nation (deutschen Nation).

It is important to note that at that time the phrase "German people", "German nation" referred only to those who were close to the emperor - dukes, counts, archbishops. However, this name indicates the desire of members of the imperial court to separate from the Roman Curia, with which they were in conflict on various political and financial issues.

The area that became known as Deutschland, or , was nominally under the rule of a German king, who was also the Roman emperor, from the 10th century. In fact, various principalities, counties, cities had a sufficient degree of autonomy. They kept their own traditions even after the foundation of the national state - the German Empire in 1871.

The old names - Brandenburg, Saxony are still the designations of their respective lands. Other names (for example, Swabia, Franconia) are saved in reference books and maps in the "Historical Landscapes" section. Regional differences are of great importance in German culture, although it is quite obvious that they are often manipulated by the authorities for political and commercial purposes.

The Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949 after the country's defeat in World War II. Initially, it consisted of the so-called West Germany, that is, the area that was occupied by the French, British and Americans. In 1990, the five regions that make up eastern Germany - the area under the control of the Soviet Union, known as the GDR (German Democratic Republic) - became part of the FRG.

From now on, Germany consists of 16 federal states: Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Goldstein and Thuringia.

Country Education

At different times, the concept of nationality was interpreted in different ways. Humanist scholars of the early 16th century initiated a controversy about the German nation. In their opinion, modern Germans are the descendants of the ancient Germanic peoples, which are described in the writings of Roman thinkers - Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) and Cornelius Tacitus (55-116 AD), the author of the famous work "Germany" .

From the point of view of Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523), it was Tacitus who most accurately approached the understanding of the origin of the German nation, which in many respects, if not equal, then exceeded the Romans. The German humanists made their hero Armin, who defeated the Roman forces at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.

The interest of German thinkers in their famous predecessors and the literature of that time, as history shows, continued into the 18th century - this is felt in the inspired patriotic poetry of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803) and poets belonging to the Göttinger Hain group, founded in 1772 .

Scholar Norbert Elias has argued that the heightened attention that German philosophers and writers paid to the writings of Roman intellectuals was largely motivated by the rejection of the aristocratic court traditions that characterized their French counterparts.

On the eve of the French Revolution (1789), it was divided into almost 300 political entities of various sizes, each of which had its own degree of sovereignty. In 1974, French troops occupied the left bank of the Rhine, which was divided among several principalities.

In 1806, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) disbanded the territory of the Holy Roman Empire. In the same year, Napoleon's troops defeated Prussia and its allies in the battles of Jena and Auerstet. German nationalism formed in response to this defeat. During liberation war(1813-1815) many patriotic volunteers joined the army, and the allied forces under the Prussian leadership drove the French out of Germany.

Those who hoped that a unified German state would be created became disappointed in these aspirations after Congress of Vienna(1815). The dynastic rulers of individual German lands remained in their positions. Along with the rise of historical science in the first half of the 19th century, the emphasis on German history was supplemented by the ideas of medieval thinkers about the origins of the German nation.

In the era of nationalism, when the nation-state was understood as the end point of historical development, German historians tried to explain why Germany, unlike France and England, still could not become a single state. They believed that they found the answer to this question in the medieval period of history. Shortly after the death of Charles (814), the Carolingian empire was divided into northern, middle and eastern kingdoms.

From the teleological point of view of historians of the 19th century, the western kingdom became France, the eastern - Germany, and the middle lands remained a bone of contention between these states. The German king Otto I, who ruled in the 10th century, organized a number of expeditions to. In 962 he was crowned emperor by the Pope. From that moment on, a close relationship began to form between Germany and the medieval version of the Roman Empire.

German historians of the 19th century viewed the medieval kingdom as the beginning of the process of formation of the national German state. The medieval ruler was the main initiator national development, however, modern historians tend to believe that the real actions of the emperors contradicted this high purpose.

The most important villains of medieval history, especially in the eyes of the Protestants, were the popes and those German princes who supported them against the emperor for reasons that were called "selfish". The opposition of the pope and the princes, as historians believed, "strangled" the proper development of the German nation. The high point was the era of the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138-1254).

Emperor Frederick I of Hohenstaufen is considered a great German hero, although the empire entered a long period of decline after his reign. The first Habsburgs, according to modern researchers, showed great promise, but their successors did not excel in anything particularly good. The lowest point in the development of national consciousness is considered to be the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), when Germany was tormented by both external and internal enemies.

The educated bourgeoisie and the popular masses of Germany in the 19th century hoped for the renewal of the state, but there was no consensus on what exactly it should be. The main conflict was between the supporters of grossdeutsch - "big Germany" under Austrian rule and kleindeutsch - "little Germany" under Prussian rule and without taking into account the territory of Austria.

The second option was implemented when Prussia won a series of wars - defeated Denmark in 1864, Austria in 1866 and France in 1871. In the writings of the Prussian school of history, the victory of Prussia and the foundation of the German Empire in 1981 are portrayed as the realization of the plans of the medieval emperor Frederick I.

After the founding of the empire, the German government pursued an aggressive policy aimed both at other countries and at the territories associated with the eastern border. Defeat in World War I led to widespread dissatisfaction with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which many Germans considered unfair.

The people also opposed the founders of the Weimar Republic, as they considered them traitors. Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist Party, deliberately exploited the indignation of the masses and their desire to achieve national greatness. The propaganda of the National Socialists was built on the exaltation of the German nation, its biological superiority over other races.

German national identity

After the Second World War, the question of the national identity of the Germans became not very convenient, since the national movement, it would seem, ended with the rule of the Third Reich, because one of its sides was the murder of millions of people, including 6 million Jews. The subsequent years of German history were devoted to combating this problem.

Many attempts have been made to explain the ideology of Nazism and the crimes committed by the Nazis. Some believe that Adolf Hitler and his henchmen are villains who misled the German people. Others blame Nazism for the Germans' lack of national character. Still others see the beginning of Germany's problems in the rejection of the rational and universal principles of the Enlightenment and the adoption of romantic irrationalism.

Marxist scholars consider Nazism a form of fascism, which, in turn, in their opinion, is capitalism, formed under certain historical conditions. There are also opinions about the unsuccessful bourgeois revolution of the 19th century and the protracted power of the feudal elites - this is also put in the reasons for the development of Nazism. Interpretations of this kind are called Vergangenheitsbewältigung ("overcoming the past").

These attempts became widespread in West Germany during the socialist rule in the GDR. Some Germans emphasized the similarities between the two forms of dictatorship, National Socialist and Communist, while others, mostly East Germans, felt that the Third Reich and the GDR were fundamentally different states. The differences between the opinions of West and East Germany are referred to as the so-called Mauer in den Köpfen, or walls, an allusion to the real wall that was erected to separate East and West Germany.

In recent years, German nationalism has been redefined in accordance with the vision of the nation as an "imaginary community" based on "made-up traditions". Scholars have focused on the organization, symbolism, and developmental path of the national movement as it developed in the 19th century.

The most significant contribution to the development of national self-determination of that time was played by public associations that returned back to local, regional and national traditions; a number of monuments erected by the government and citizens; various works on the history of Germany and the thoughts of historians, which have already been mentioned above. In addition, there is also literature in which there was also a comprehension of the concept of national.

There is considerable controversy over the political implications of a critical history of nationalism in Germany. Some scholars seem to seek to abandon the deviant implications of modern German nationalism, while preserving along the way those aspects with which, in their opinion, the Germans should identify themselves. Others see nationalism as a dangerous stage in the process of historical development, which the Germans must leave behind.

ethnic relations

The creators of the Grundgesetz ("Basic Law", or Constitution) of the Federal Republic of Germany passed the old laws, according to which citizenship is determined according to jus sanguinis (literally: "right of blood"), that is, a child must be born to German parents. For this reason, many people born outside of Germany are considered Germans, while those born in Germany itself are not.

Beginning in the 1960s, the country began to recognize the millions of immigrants who play a huge role in the German economy. Although immigrant workers from Turkey, Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal were called guest workers, many of them remained in Germany and started families here. They assimilated their livelihoods with the German way of life.

However, it is quite difficult for them to obtain German citizenship. The Germans themselves consider them Ausländer (foreigners). Starting in 2000, new laws came into force that grant dual citizenship to the children of foreigners who were born in Germany.

The new legislation has intensified discussions about Germany's status as a country of immigrants. At present, all major political parties agree that there is and should be a country of immigrants, but their opinions differ regarding many aspects of immigration policy.