-
Economic Development
Before 1850 Germany lagged behind the leaders in industrial development, Britain, France and Belgium. However, the country had considerable assets : a highly skilled labor force, a good educational system, a strong work ethic, good standards of living and a sound protectionist strategy based on the Zollverein. By midcentury, the German states were catching up, and by 1900 Germany was a world leader in industrialization, along with Britain and the United States. In 1800, Germany's social structur -
Napoleon invades German Lands
The German Campaign was the campaign which ended the War of the Sixth Coalition, itself part of the Napoleonic Wars. It took place in Germany after Napoleon's retreat from Russia. In Germany itself it became known as the Befreiungskriege (Wars of Liberation) or Freiheitskriege (Wars of Freedom) - both terms were used at the time, both by liberals and nationalists in terms of a unified and democratic Germany and by conservatives after the Bourbon Restoration to mean freein -
House of Krupp
The Krupp family, a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments, and infamous for their brutal use of slave labor during World War II. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1999 it merged with Thyssen AG to form ThyssenKrupp AG, a large industrial conglomerate. -
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Austrian statesman Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September 1814 to June 1815 -
Otto Von Bismarck birth
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg, known as Otto von Bismarck, was a conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890, was born in Schönhausen, Germany on this day -
Zollverein
The Zollverein ([ˈtsɔlfɛʁˌain]) or German Customs Union was a coalition of German states formed to manage tariffs and economic policies within their territories. -
Frederick William IV is Offered the Throne
Frederick William IV, the eldest son and successor of Frederick William III of Prussia, reigned as King of Prussia from 1840 to 1861. Also referred to as the "romanticist on the throne", he is best remembered for the many buildings he had constructed in Berlin and Potsdam, as well as for the completion of the Gothic Cologne cathedral. In politics, he was a conservative, and in 1849 he rejected the title of German Emperor offered to him by the Frankfurt parliament. -
Frankfurt Asssembly Demands Unity
The Frankfurt Assembly was the first freely elected parliament for all of Germany, elected on 1 May 1848. The session was held from 18 May 1848 to 31 May 1849, in the Paulskirche at Frankfurt am Main. Its existence was both part of and the result of the "March Revolution" in the states of the German Confederation.
After long and controversial debates, the assembly produced the so-called Frankfurt Constitution and a constituitional monarchy headed by Kaiser. -
William 1 of Prussia Becomes Emperor
The first German Emperor, as well as the first Head of State of a united Germany. Under the leadership of William and his Minister President Otto von Bismarck, Prussia achieved the unification of Germany and the establishment of the German Empire. Despite his long support of Bismarck as Minister President, however, William held strong reservations about some of Bismarck's more reactionary policies, including his anti-Catholicism and tough handling of subordinates. -
Blood and Iron Speech
"The position of Prussia in Germany will not be determined by its liberalism but by its power ... Prussia must concentrate its strength and hold it for the favorable moment, which has already come and gone several times. Since the treaties of Vienna, our frontiers have been ill-designed for a healthy body politic. Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided - that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849 - but by iron and blood. -
Bismarck Becomes Prime Minister
In 1862 King Wilhelm I appointed Bismarck as Minister President of Prussia, a post he would hold until 1890 (except for a short break in 1873). He provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark, Austria and France, aligning the smaller German states behind Prussia in defeating his arch-enemy France. In 1871 he formed the German Empire with himself as Chancellor, while retaining control of Prussia. -
Bismarck Declares War on Denmarck
The Danish king's attempts to annex the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein provided an opportunity for Bismarck to act. He enticed Austria to declare war on Denmark to acquire these two territories. -
Bismarck Declares War on Austria
A war fought in 1866 between the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire and its German allies on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia with its German allies and Italy on the other, that resulted in Prussian dominance over the German states. In the Italian unification process, this is called the Third Independence War. -
Constituition Drafted by Bismarck
Accepted the constitution, which was essentially written by Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian minister-president and first Bundeskanzler (the sole minister) of the confederation. North German liberals had their influence within it. According to the constitution, the highest organ of the confederation was the Bundesrat (Federal Council). It represented the governments of the North German states. Prussia had 17 of 43 votes in the council, giving it the right of veto. -
Franco Prussian War
A conflict between the Second French Empire and the German states of the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. The conflict emerged from tensions caused by German unification. Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck planned to provoke a French attack in order to draw the southern German states—Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria and Hesse-Darmstadt—into an alliance with the Prussian dominated North German Confederation. -
Population Growth 1871-1914
German society grew and changed dramatically in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In the twenty years prior to the First World War, the rate of population growth averaged 1.34 percent, as compared to .47 percent annual growth in 1871. The result was that Germany’s population – 41 million in 1871 – grew to 49.7 million by 1891 and increased to 65.3 million by 1911. -
Bismarck Becomes Chancellor
In 1871 he formed the German Empire with himself as Chancellor, while retaining control of Prussia. His diplomacy of realpolitik and powerful rule at home gained him the nickname the "Iron Chancellor". German unification and its rapid economic growth was the foundation to his foreign policy. -
Second Reich is Created
The community from which Bismarck formed his conception of the state was first the family and clan, then the landlord caste, and finally the people. These communities found their unifying force in the Kaiser, who as their patriarchal head enjoyed divine honors as ruler by the grace of God. The existence of the state was justified as the framework within which these communities existed, and it had thus a biological as well as a religious content. -
Campaign Against the Church (Kulturkampf)
The German term is,"culture struggle" refers to German policies in relation to secularity and reducing the role and power of the Roman Catholic Church in Prussia, enacted from 1871 to 1878 by the Prime Minister of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck accelerated the Kulturkampf, which did not extend to the other German states such as Bavaria. -
Campaign Against the Socialists
The Anti-Socialist Law of 1878 was perhaps the most important repressive law of Bismarck’s chancellorship. Bismarck, who had never hidden his distaste for the teachings of socialism, made several attempts to curtail the growth of German Social Democracy during the 1870s – for instance through restrictions on the press and the revision of Germany’s Criminal Code. But opponents successfully resisted almost all of these measures, and the number of votes cast for socialist candidates in Reichstag. -
William II Becomes Kaiser
He is the last German Emperor (Kaiser) and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was the eldest grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe. Crowned in 1888, he dismissed the Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, in 1890 and launched Germany on a bellicose "New Course" in foreign affairs that culminated in his support for Austria-Hungary in the crisis of July 1914. -
Bismarck Resigns
A devout Lutheran, he was loyal to his king, who in turn gave Bismarck his full support, against the advice of his wife and his heir. While Germany's parliament was elected by universal male suffrage, it did not have real control of the government. Bismarck distrusted democracy and ruled through a strong, well-trained bureaucracy with power in the hands of a traditional Junker elite that comprised the landed nobility of the east. He was removed by young Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890.
